;,-■'•■•:■■■'■'■..'■' 



MM 

Mr 

i 



H H lift 



Hi 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



00010320343 



HHK 



m ■ ' 



A HISTORY 



OF 



THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 



BY 

JAMES HENRY 6ftEASTED, p H .D. 

Professor of Egyptology and Oriental History in the 

University of Chicago; Corresponding Member of 

the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin 



WITH FOUR MAPS AND THREE PLANS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1908 






1 


LIBRARY of Or N 






iwo Copies r. : ' 




1 


;ohy a. 




Copyright 1905, 1908 


By Ci 


IARLES SCRIBXER'S 


Sons 



Published May, 190S 




TO 

MY FATHER 
In Reverence and Gratitude 



PREFACE 



As works on the early Orient multiply, it becomes 
more and more easy to produce such books at second 
and third hand, which are thus separated by a long 
remove from the original monuments forming our 
primary sources of knowledge. As the use of this vol- 
ume is in a measure conditioned by the method which 
produced it, may the author state that it is based di- 
rectly and immediately upon the monuments, and in 
most cases upon the original monuments, rather than 
upon any published edition of the same ? For this pur- 
pose the historical monuments still standing in Egypt, 
or installed in the museums of Europe (the latter in to- 
to), were copied or collated by the author anew ad hoc 
and rendered into English (see infra, p. 445, B. Trans- 
lations, BAR). Upon this complete version the present 
volume rests. Those students who desire to consult 
the sources upon which any given fact is based, are re- 
ferred to this English corpus. A full bibliography of 
each original monument, if desired, will also be found 
there, and hence no references to such technical bibliog- 
raphy will be found herein, thus freeing the reader 
from a mass of workshop debris, to which, however, 
he can easily refer, if he desires it. 

While this volume is largely a condensation and 
abridgement of the author's longer history, he has en- 



viii PREFACE 

deavourecl to conform it to the design of this historical 
series and to make it as far as possible a history of the 
Egyptian people. At the same time the remarkable 
recent discoveries and the progress of research made 
since the appearance of his larger history have been 
fully incorporated. The discovery of the Hittite capital 
at Boghaz-Koi in Asia Minor, with numerous cuneiform 
records of this remarkable people, and elsewhere the 
evidence that they conquered Babylonia temporarily in 
the eighteenth century b. c, form the most remarkable 
of the new facts recently recovered.* The new-found 
evidence that the first and third dynasties of Babylon 
were contemporaneous with the second, has also settled 
the problem, whether the civilization of the Nile or of the 
Euphrates is older, in favour of Egypt, where the forma- 
tion of a homogeneous, united state, embracing the 
whole country under the successive dynasties, is over a 
thousand years older than in Babylonia. We possess no 
monument of Babylonia, as Eduard Meyer recently 
remarked to the author, older than 3000 B. c. The 
author's journey through Sudanese Xubia during the 
winter of 1906-07 cleared his mind of a number of mis- 
conceptions of that country, especially economically, 
while it also recovered the lost city of Gem-Aton, and 
disposed of the impossible though current view that the 
Egyptian conquest was extended southward immedi- 
ately after the fall of the Middle Kingdom. Those fa- 
miliar with the other history will also welcome the im- 
proved maps redrawn for this volume. 

On the never-settled question of a pronounceable, 

* This book was paged in October. 1907, but as the proof was 
unhappily lost for three months in transport to Europe, the re- 
sults of the second campaign (summer of 1907) at Boghaz-Koi, 
which appeared in December, 1907, could not be employed in 
detail as they might otherwise have been. 



PREFACE 



IX 



that is vocalized, form of Egyptian proper names, 
which are written in hieroglyphic without vowels, I must 
refer the reader to the remarks in the preface of my An- 
cient Records (Vol. I., pp. xiv. Jf.). It is hoped that the 
index has made them pronounceable. As to the au- 
thor's indebtedness to others in the preparation of this 
volume, he may also refer to his acknowledgments in 
the same preface, as well as in that of his larger history 
— acknowledgments which are equally true of this 
briefer work. He would also express his appreciation 
of the patience shown him by both editor and pub- 
lisher, who have waited long for the manuscript of this 
book, delayed as it has been by distant travels and 
heavy tasks, and the fact that the mass of the material 
collected proved too large to condense at once into this 
volume, thus resulting in the production of the larger 
history first. Even so, the present volume is larger than 
its fellows in the series, and the author greatly appre- 
ciates the indulgence of the publishers in this respect. 
In conclusion, to the student of the Old Testament, by 
whom it will be chiefly used, the author would express 
the hope that the little book may contribute somewhat 
toward a wider recognition of the fact, that the rise and 
development, the culture and career, of the Hebrew 
nation were as vitally conditioned and as deeply influ- 
enced by surrounding civilizations, as modern historical 
science has shown to be the fact with every other peo- 
ple, ancient or modern. 

James Henry Breasted. 



Bordighera, Italy, March 2, 1908. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

I. The Land of the Egyptians 3 

II. Preliminary Survey, Chronology and Docu- 
mentary Sources 14 

III. Earliest Egypt 29 



PART II 
THE OLD KINGDOM 

IV. Early Religion 55 

V. The Old Kingdom: Government and Society, 

Industry and Art 74 

VI. The Pyramid Builders 103 

VII. The Sixth Dynasty: the Decline of the Old 

Kingdom 117 



PART III 

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM : THE FEUDAL AGE 

VIII. The Decline of the North and the Rise of 

Thebes 133 

IX. The Middle Kingdom or the Feudal Age 

State, Society and Religion .... 139 
X. The Twelfth Dynasty ........ 152 



CONTEXTS 

PART IV 

THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

PAGE 

XL The Fall of the Middle Kingdom. The 

Hyksos 173 

XII. The Expulsion of the Hyksos and the Tri- 
umph of Thebes 1S5 



PART V 
THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

XIII. The New State: Society and Religion . . . 

XIV. The Consolidation of the Kingdom; the 

Rise of the Empire 207 

XV. The Feud of the Thutmosids and the Reign 

of Queen Hatshepsut 214 

XVI. The Consolidation of the Empire: the Wars 

of Thutmose hi 223 

XVII. The Empire at Its Height 244 

XVIII. The Religious Reyolittion of Ikhnaton . . 204 
XIX. The Fall of Ikhnaton and the Dissolution 

of the Empire 2S0 



PART VI 

THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

XX. The Triumph of Amon and the Reorganiza- 
tion of the Empire 293 

XXI. The Wars of Ramses II 303 

XXII. The Empire of Ramses II 314 

XXIII. The Final Decline of the Empire: Mernep- 

tah and Ramses III 327 



CONTENTS xiii 

PART VII 
THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

PAGE 

XXIV. The Fall of the Empire 347 

XXV. Priests and Mercenaries: the Supremacy of 

the Libyans 357 

XXVI. The Ethiopian Supremacy and the Triumph 

of Assyria 367 

PART VIII 

THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

XXVII. The Restoration 387 

XXVIII. The Final Struggles: Babylon and Persia 404 

Chronological Summary 419 

Notes on Recent Discoveries 439 

A Selected Bibliography (including Abbreviations) . . 444 
Index of Names and Subjects . . ' 455 

MAPS AND PLANS 

FACING PAGE 

Map I. Egypt and the Ancient World 4 ' 

Map II. The Asiatic Empire of Egypt 210 - 

Map III. Thebes and Its Ancient Buildings . . . 218 ' 

Plan IV. The Temples of Karnak 228 ' 

The Battle of Kadesh, First Stage 305 

The Battle of Kadesh, Second Stage 307 

Map V. General Map of Egypt and Nubia. At the End 



PAKT I 
INTRODUCTION 



THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS 

1. The roots of modern civilization are planted 
deeply in the highly elaborate life of those nations 
which rose into power over six thousand years ago, in 
the basin of the eastern Mediterranean, and the ad- 
jacent regions on the east of it. Had the Euphrates 
finally found its way into the Mediterranean, toward 
which, indeed, it seems to have started, both the early 
civilizations, to which we refer, might then have been 
included in the Mediterranean basin. As it is, the 
scene of early oriental history does hot fall entirely 
within that basin, but must be designated as the east- 
ern Mediterranean region. It lies in the midst of the 
vast desert plateau, which, beginning at the Atlantic, 
extends eastward across the entire northern end of 
Africa, and continuing beyond the depression of the 
Red Sea, passes northeastward, with some interrup- 
tions, far into the heart of Asia. Approaching it, the 
one from the south and the other from the north, two 
great river valleys traverse this desert; in Asia, the 
Tigro-Euphrates valley; in Africa that of the Nile. It 
is in these two valleys that the career of man may be 
traced from the rise of European civilization back to a 
remoter age than anywhere else on earth; and it is 
from these two cradles of the human race that the in- 
fluences which emanated from their highly developed 



4 INTRODUCTION 

but differing cultures, can now be more an< ^Jmore 
clearly traced as we discern them converging up^n the 
early civilization of Asia Minor and southern Europe. 

2. The Nile, which created the valley home of the 
early Egyptians, rises three degrees south of the equa- 
tor, and flowing into the Mediterranean at over thirty- 
one and a half degrees north latitude, it attains a length 
of some four thousand miles and vies with the greatest 
rivers of the world in length, if not in volume. In its 
upper course the river, emerging from the lakes of 
equatorial Africa, is known as the White Nile. Just 
south of north latitude sixteen at Khartum, about 
thirteen hundred and fifty miles from the sea, it re- 
ceives from the east an affluent known as the Blue 
Nile, which is a considerable mountain torrent, rising 
in the lofty highlands of Abyssinia. One hundred and 
forty miles below the union of the two Niles the stream 
is joined by its only other tributary, the Atbara, which 
is a freshet not unlike the Blue Nile. It is at Khar- 
tum, or just below it, that the river enters the table- 
Jand of Nubian sandstone, underlying the Great Sa- 
hara. Here it winds on its tortuous course between 
the desert hills, where it returns upon itself, often 
flowing due south, until after it has finally pushed 
through to the north, its course describes a vast S. 

3. In six different places throughout this region the 
current has hitherto failed to erode a perfect channel 
through the stubborn stone, and these extended inter- 
ruptions, where the rocks are piled in scattered and 
irregular masses in the stream, are known as the cata- 
racts of the Nile; although there is no great and sud- 
den fall such as that of our cataract at Niagara. These 
rocks interfere with navigation most seriously in the 
region of the second and fourth cataracts; otherwise 




MAP I. EGYPT AND THE ANCIENT WORLD. 

(Sonic mod I:i<-' ""' name '" inserted for convenience) 



THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS 5 

the river is navigable almost throughout its entire 
course, At Elephantine it passes the granite barrier 
which there thrusts up its rough shoulder, forming the 
first cataract, and thence emerges upon an unob- 
structed course to. the sea. 

4. It is the valley below the first cataract which con- 
stituted Egypt proper. The reason for the change 
which here gives the river a free course is the disap- 
pearance of the sandstone, sixty-eight miles below the 
cataract, at Edfu, where the nummulitic limestone 
which forms the northern desert plateau, offers the 
stream an easier task in the erosion of its bed. It has 
thus produced a vast canon or trench cut across the 
eastern end of the Sahara to the northern sea. From 
cliff to cliff, the valley varies in width, from ten or 
twelve, to some thirty-one miles. The floor of the 
canon is covered with black, alluvial deposits, through 
which the river winds northward. It cuts a deep 
channel through the alluvium, flowing with a speed of 
about three miles an hour; in width it only twice at- 
tains a maximum of eleven hundred yards. On the 
west the Bahr Yusuf a second, minor channel some 
two hundred miles long, leaves the main stream near 
Siut and flows into the Fayum. In antiquity it flowed 
thence into a canal known as the "North," which 
passed northward west of Memphis and reached the 
sea by the site of later Alexandria (BAR, iv 224, 1. 8, 
note). A little over a hundred miles from the sea the 
main stream enters the broad triangle, with apex at 
the south, which the Greeks so graphically called the 
"Delta." This is of course a bay of prehistoric ages, 
which has been gradually filled up by the river. The 
stream once divided at this point and reached the sea 
through seven mouths, but in modern times there are 



6 INTRODUCTION 

but two main branches, straggling through the Delta 
and piercing the coast-line on either side of the mid- 
dle. The western branch is called the Rosetta mouth; 
the eastern that of Damiette. 

5. The deposits which have formed the Delta, are 
very deep, and have slowly risen over the sites of the 
many ancient cities which once flourished there. The 
old swamps which once must have rendered the regions 
of the northern Delta a vast morass, have been gradu- 
ally filled up, and the fringe of marshes pushed further 
out. They undoubtedly occupied in antiquity a much 
larger proportion of the Delta than they do now. In 
the valley above, the depth of the soil varies from thirty- 
three to thirty-eight feet, and sometimes reaches a 
maximum of ten miles in width. The cultivable area 
thus formed, between the cataract and the sea, is less 
than ten thousand square miles in extent, being roughly 
equal to the area of the state of Maryland, or about 
ten per cent, less than that of Belgium. The cliffs on 
either hand are usually but a few hundred feet in 
height, but here and there they rise into almost moun- 
tains of a thousand feet. They are of course flanked 
by the deserts through which the Nile has cut its way. 
On the west the Libyan Desert or the great Sahara 
rolls in illimitable, desolate hills of sand, gravel and 
rock, from six hundred and fifty to a thousand feet 
above the Nile. Its otherwise waterless expanse is 
broken only by an irregular line of oases, or watered 
depressions, roughly parallel with the river and doubt- 
less owing their springs and wells to infiltration of the 
Nile waters. The largest of these depressions is situa- 
ated so close to the valley that the rock wall which once 
separated them has broken down, producing the fertile 
Fayum, watered by the Bahr Yusuf. Otherwise the 



THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS 7 

western desert held no economic resources for the use 
of the early Nile-dwellers. The eastern or Arabian 
Desert is somewhat less inhospitable, and capable of 
yielding a scanty subsistence to wandering tribes of 
Ababdeh. Deposits of alabaster and extensive masses 
of various fine, hard igneous rocks led to the exploita- 
tion of quarries here also, while the Red Sea harbours 
could of course be reached only by traversing this 
desert, through which established routes thither were 
early traced. Further north similar mineral resources 
led to an acquaintance with the peninsula of Sinai and 
its desert regions, at a very remote date. 

6. The situation afforded by this narrow valley was 
one of unusual isolation; on either hand vast desert 
wastes, on the north the harbourless coast-line of the 
Delta, and on the south the rocky barriers of successive 
cataracts, preventing fusion with the peoples of inner 
Africa. It was chiefly at the two northern corners of 
the Delta, that outside influences and foreign elements 
which were always sifting into the Nile valley, gained 
access to the country. Through the eastern corner it 
was the prehistoric Semitic population of neighbouring 
Asia, who forced their way in across the dangerous 
intervening deserts; while the Libyan races, of possi- 
bly European origin, found entrance at the western 
corner. The products of the south also, in spite of 
the cataracts, filtered in ever increasing volume into 
the regions of the lower river and the lower end of the 
first cataract became a trading post, ever after known 
as "Suan" (Assuan) or "market," where the negro 
traders of the south met those of Egypt. The upper 
Nile thus gradually became a regular avenue of com- 
merce with the Sudan. The natural boundaries of 
Egypt, however, always presented sufficiently effective 



8 INTRODUCTION 

barriers to would-be invaders, to enable the natives 
slowly to assimilate the newcomers, without being 
displaced. 

7. It will be evident that the remarkable shape of 
the country must powerfully influence its political de- 
velopment. Except in the Delta it was but a narrow 
line, some seven hundred and fifty miles long. Strag- 
gling its slender length along the river, and sprawling 
out into the Delta, it totally lacked the compactness 
necessary to stable political organization. A given 
locality has neighbours on only two sides, north and 
south, and these their shortest boundaries; local feeling 
was strong, local differences were persistent, and a 
man of the Delta could hardly understand the speech 
of a man of the first cataract region. It was only the 
ease of communication afforded by the river which in 
any degree neutralized the effect of the country's re- 
markable length. 

8. The wealth of commerce which the river served 
to carry, it was equally instrumental in producing. 
While the climate of the country is not rainless, yet the 
rare showers of the south, often separated by intervals 
of years, and even the more frequent rains of the Delta, 
are totally insufficient to maintain the processes of 
agriculture. The marvellous productivity of the Egyp- 
tian soil is due to the annual inundation of the river, 
which is caused by the melting of the snows, and by the 
spring rains at the sources of the Blue Nile. Freighted 
with the rich loam of the Abyssinian highlands, the 
rushing waters of the spring freshet hurry down the 
Nubian valley, and a slight rise is discernible at the 
first cataract in the early part of June. The flood 
swells rapidly and steadily, and although the increase 
is usually interrupted for nearly a month from the end 



THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS 9 

of September on, it is usually resumed again, and the 
maximum level continues until the end of October or 
into November. The waters in the region of the first 
cataract are then nearly fifty feet higher than at low 
water; while at Cairo the rise is about half that at the 
cataract. A vast and elaborate system of irrigation 
canals and reservoirs first receives the flood, which is 
then allowed to escape into the fields as needed. Here 
it rests long enough to deposit its burden of rich, black 
earth from the upper reaches of the Blue Nile. At 
such times the appearance of the country is picturesque 
in the extreme, the glistening surface of the waters being 
dotted here and there by the vivid green of the waving 
palm groves, which mark the villages, now accessible 
only along the dykes belonging to the irrigation system. 
Thus year by year, the soil which would otherwise be- 
come impoverished in the elements necessary to the 
production of such prodigious harvests, is invariably 
replenished with fresh resources. 

9. As the river sinks below the level of the fields 
again, it is necessary to raise the water from the canals 
by artificial means, in order to carry on the constant 
irrigation of the growing crops in the outlying fields, 
which are too high to be longer refreshed by absorption 
from the river. Thus a genial and generous, but ex- 
acting soil, demanded for its cultivation the develop- 
ment of a high degree of skill in the manipulation of 
the life-giving waters, and at a very early day the men 
of the Nile valley had attained a surprising command of 
the complicated problems involved in the proper 
utilization of the river. If Egypt became the mother 
of the mechanical arts, the river will have been one of 
the chief natural forces to which this fact was due. 
With such natural assets as these, an ever replenished 



10 INTRODUCTION 

soil, and almost unfailing waters for its refreshment, 
the wealth of Egypt could not but be chiefly agricul- 
tural, a fact to which we shall often recur. Such 
opulent fertility of course supported a large popula- 
tion — in Roman times some seven million souls (Dio- 
dorus I, 31) — while in our own day it maintains over 
nine million, a density of population far surpassing 
that to be found anywhere in Europe. The other 
natural resources of the valley we shall be better able 
to trace as we follow their exploitation in the course of 
the historical development. 

10. In climate Egypt is a veritable paradise, drawing 
to its shores at the present day an ever increasing 
number of winter guests. The air of Egypt is essen- 
tially that of the deserts within which it lies, and such 
is its purity and dryness that even an excessive degree 
of heat occasions but slight discomfort, owing to the 
fact that the moisture of the body is dried up almost 
as fast as it is exhaled. The mean temperature of the 
Delta in winter is 56° Fahrenheit and in the valley 
above it is ten degrees higher. In summer the mean 
in the Delta is 83°; and although the summer tem- 
perature in the valley is sometimes as high as 122°, the 
air is far from the oppressiveness accompanying the 
same degree of heat in other lands. The nights even in 
summer are always cool, and the vast expanses of vege- 
tation appreciably reduce the temperature. In winter 
just before dawn the extreme cold is surprising, as 
contrasted with the genial warmth of mid-day at the 
same season. To the absence of rain we have already 
adverted. The rare showers of upper Egypt occur 
only when cyclonic disturbances in the southern 
Mediterranean or northern Sahara force undischarged 
clouds into the Nile valley from the west; from the 



THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS H 

east they cannot reach the valley, owing to the high 
mountain ridge along the Red Sea, which forces them 
upward and discharges them. The lower Delta, how- 
ever, falls within the zone of the northern rainy season. 
In spite of the wide extent of marshy ground, left stag- 
nating by the inundation, the dry airs of the desert, 
blowing constantly across the valley, quickly dry the 
soil, and there is never any malarial infection in upper 
Egypt. Even in the vast morass of the Delta, malaria 
is practically unknown. Thus, lying just outside of 
the tropics, Egypt enjoyed a mild climate of unsur- 
passed salubrity, devoid of the harshness of a northern 
winter, but at the same time sufficiently cool to escape 
those enervating influences inherent in tropical condi- 
tions. 

11. The prospect of this contracted valley spread out 
before the Nile dweller, was in antiquity, as it is to-day 
somewhat monotonous. The level Nile bottoms, the 
gift of the river, clad in rich green, shut in on either 
hand by the yellow cliffs, are unrelieved by any eleva- 
tions or by any forests, save the occasional groves of 
graceful palms, which fringe the river banks or shade 
the villages of sombre mud huts, with now and then a 
sycamore, a tamarisk or an acacia. A network of 
irrigation canals traverses the country in every direc- 
tion like a vast arterial system. The sands of the 
desolate wastes which lie behind the canon walls, drift 
in athwart the cliffs, and often invade the green fields 
so that one may stand with one foot in the verdure of 
the valley, and the other in the desert sand. Thus 
sharply defined was the Egyptian's world: a deep and 
narrow river-valley of unparalleled fertility, winding 
between lifeless deserts, furnishing a remarkable en- 
vironment, not to be found elsewhere in all the world. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

Such surroundings reacted powerfully upon the mind 
and thought of the Egyptian, conditioning and deter- 
mining his idea of the world and his notion of the 
mysterious powers which ruled it. 

12. Such was in brief the scene in which developed 
the people of the Nile, whose culture dominated the 
basin of the eastern Mediterranean in the age when 
Europe was emerging into the secondary stages of 
civilization, and coming into intimate contact with the 
culture of the early east. Nowhere on earth have the 
witnesses of a great, but now extinct civilization, been 
so plentifully preserved as along the banks of the Nile. 
Even in the Delta, where the storms of war beat more 
fiercely than in the valley above, and where the slow 
accumulations from the yearly flood have gradually 
entombed them, the splendid cities of the Pharaohs 
have left great stretches cumbered with enormous 
blocks of granite, limestone and sandstone, shattered 
obelisks, and massive pylon bases, to proclaim the 
wealth and power of forgotten ages; while an ever 
growing multitude of modern visitors are drawn to the 
upper valley by the colossal ruins that greet the won- 
dering traveller almost at every bend in the stream. 
Nowhere else in the ancient world were such massive 
stone buildings erected, and nowhere else has a dry 
atmosphere, coupled with an almost complete absence 
of rain, permitted the survival of such a wealth of the 
best and highest in the life of an ancient people, in so far 
as that life found expression in material form. In the 
plenitude of its splendour, much of it thus survived 
into the classic age of European civilization, and hence 
it was, that as Egypt was gradually overpowered and 
absorbed by the western world, the currents of life 
from west and east commingled here, as they have 



THE LAND OF THE EGYPTIANS 13 

never done elsewhere. Both in the Nile valley and 
beyond it, the west thus felt the full impact of Egyptian 
civilization for many centuries, and gained from it all 
that its manifold culture had to contribute. The career 
which made Egypt so rich a heritage of alien peoples, 
and a legacy so valuable to all later ages, we shall 
endeavour to trace in the ensuing chapters. 



II 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY. CHRONOLOGY AND DOCU- 
MENTARY SOURCES 

13. A rapid survey of the purely external features 
which serve to deruark the great epochs in the career of 
the Nile valley people, will enable us the more intelli- 
gently to study those epochs in detail, as we meet them 
in the course of our progress. In such a survey, we 
sweep our eyes down a period of four thousand years 
of human history, from a time when the only civiliza- 
tion known in the basin of the Mediterranean is slowly 
dawning among a primitive people on the shores of the 
Nile. We can cast but a brief glance at the outward 
events which characterized each great period, espe- 
cially noting how foreign peoples are gradually drawn 
within the circle of Egyptian intercourse from age to 
age, and reciprocal influences ensue; until in the thir- 
teenth century b. c. the peoples of southern Europe, 
long discernible in their material civilization, emerge 
in the written documents of Egypt for the first time in 
history. It was then that the fortunes of the Pharaohs 
began to decline, and as the civilization and power, 
first of the East and then of classic Europe, slowly 
developed, Egypt was finally submerged in the great 
world of Mediterranean powers, first dominated by 
Persia, and then by Greece and Rome. 

14. The career of the races which peopled the Nile 
valley falls into a series of more or less clearly marked 

14 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 15 

epochs, each of which is rooted deeply in that which 
preceded it, and itself contains the germs of that which 
is to follow. A more or less arbitrary and artificial but 
convenient subdivision of these epochs, beginning with 
the historic age, is furnished by the so-called dynasties 
of Manetho. This native historian of Egypt, a priest 
of Sebennytos, who flourished under Ptolemy I (305- 
285 B. c), wrote a history of his country in the Greek 
language. The work has perished, and we only know 
it in an epitome by Julius Africanus and Eusebius, and 
extracts by Josephus. The value of the work was 
slight, as it was built up on folk-tales and popular 
traditions of the early kings. Manetho divided the 
long succession of Pharaohs, as known to him, into 
thirty royal houses or dynasties, and although we know 
that many of his divisions are arbitrary, and that there 
w T as many a dynastic change where he indicates none, 
yet his dynasties divide the kings into convenient 
groups, which have so long been employed in modern 
study of Egyptian history, that it is now impossible to 
dispense with them. 

15. After an archaic age of primitive civilization, and 
a period of small and local kingdoms, the various cen- 
tres of civilization on the Nile gradually coalesced into 
two kingdoms: one comprising the valley down to the 
Delta; and the other made up of the Delta itself. In 
the Delta, civilization rapidly advanced, and the calen- 
dar year of 365 days was introduced in 4241 b. c, the 
earliest fixed date in the history of the world as known 
to us (MC, 38 &., BAR, I, 44-45). A long develop- 
ment, as the "Two Lands," which left their imprint 
forever after on the civilization of later centuries, pre- 
ceded a united Egypt, which emerged upon our his- 
toric horizon at the consolidation of the two kingdoms 



16 INTRODUCTION 

into one nation under Menes about 3400 B. c. His 
accession marks the beginning of the dynasties, and the 
preceding, earliest period may be conveniently desig- 
nated as the predynastic age. In the excavations of 
the last twelve years (since 1S95) the predynastic civ- 
ilization has been gradually revealed in material docu- 
ments exhibiting the various stages in the slow evolu- 
tion which at last produced the dynastic culture. 

16. A uniform government of the whole country was 
the secret of over four centuries of prosperity under the 
descendants of Menes at Thinis, near Abydos, close to 
the great bend of the Nile below Thebes, and probably 
also at or near later Memphis. The remarkable de- 
velopment of these four centuries in material civiliza- 
tion led to the splendour and power of the first great 
epoch of Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom. The 
seat of government was at Memphis, where four royal 
houses, the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, 
ruled in succession for five hundred years (2980-2475 
B. a). Art and mechanics reached a level of unpre- 
cedented excellence never later surpassed, while govern- 
ment and administration had never before been so 
highly developed. Foreign enterprise passed far be- 
yond the limits of the kingdom; the mines of Sinai, 
already operated in the First Dynasty, were vigourously 
exploited; trade in Egyptian bottoms reached the coast 
of Phoenicia and the Islands of the North, while in the 
South, the Pharaoh's fleets penetrated to the Somali 
coast (Punt) on the Red Sea; and in Nubia his envoys 
were strong enough to exercise a loose sovereigntv over 
the lower country, and by tireless expeditions to keep 
open the trade routes leading to the Sudan. In the 
Sixth Dynasty (2025-2475 b. c.) the local governors of 
the central administration, who had already gained 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 17 

hereditary hold upon their offices in the Fifth Dynasty 
(2750-2625 b. a), were able to assert themselves as 
landed barons and princes, no longer mere function- 
aries of the crown. They thus prepared the way for 
an age of feudalism. 

17. The growing power of the new landed nobility 
finally caused the fall of the Pharaonic house, and at 
the close of the Sixth Dynasty, about 2475 B. c, the 
supremacy of Memphis waned. In the internal con- 
fusion which followed, we can discern nothing of 
Manetho's ephemeral Seventh and Eighth Dynasties 
at Memphis, which lasted not more than thirty years; 
but with the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties the nobles of 
Heracleopolis gained the throne, which was occupied 
by eighteen successive kings of the line. It is now that 
Thebes first appears as the seat of a powerful family 
of princes, by whom the Heracleopolitans and the 
power of the north are gradually overcome till the 
South triumphs. The exact lapse of time from the fall 
of the Old Kingdom to the triumph of the South is at 
present indeterminable, but it may be estimated 
roughly at two hundred and seventy-five to three 
hundred years, with a margin of uncertainty of pos- 
sibly a century either way (BAR, I, 53). 

18. With the restoration of peace and order under 
the Theban princes of the Eleventh Dynasty about 
2160 b. c, the issue of the tendencies already dis- 
cernible at the close of the Old Kingdom is clearly 
visible. Throughout the land the local princes and 
barons are firmly seated in their domains, and with 
these hereditary feudatories the Pharaoh must now 
reckon. The system was not fully developed until the 
advent of a second Theban family, the Twelfth Dy- 
nasty, the founder of which, Amenemhet I, probably 



18 INTRODUCTION 

usurped the throne. For over two hundred years 
(2000-1788 B. c.) this powerful line of kings ruled a 
feudal state. This feudal age is the classic period of 
Egyptian history. Literature flourished, the orthog- 
raphy of the language was for the first time regulated,, 
poetry had already reached a highly artistic structure, 
the earliest known literature of entertainment was pro- 
duced, sculpture and architecture were rich and pro- 
lific, and the industrial arts surpassed all previous 
attainments. The internal resources of the country 
were elaborately developed, especially by close atten- 
tion to the Nile and the inundation. Enormous 
hydraulic works reclaimed large tracts of cultivable 
domain in the Fayum, in the vicinity of which the kings 
of the Twelfth Dynasty, the Amenemhets and the 
Sesostrises, lived. Abroad the exploitation of the 
mines in Sinai was now carried on by the constant 
labour of permanent colonies there, with temples, for- 
tifications and reservoirs for the water supply. A 
plundering campaign was carried into Syria, trade and 
intercourse with its Semitic tribes were constant, and 
an interchange of commodities with the early Mycenaean 
centres of civilization in the northern Mediterranean 
is evident. Traffic with Punt and the southern coasts 
of the Red Sea continued, while in Nubia the country 
between the first and second cataracts, loosely con- 
trolled in the Sixth Dynasty, was now conquered and 
held tributary by the Pharaoh, so that the gold mines 
on the east of it were a constant resource of his treasury. 
19. The fall of the Twelfth Dynasty in 17SS b. c. 
w r as followed by a second period of disorganization and 
obscurity, as the feudatories struggled for the crown. 
After possibly a century of such internal conflict, the 
country was entered and appropriated by a line of 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 19 

rulers from Asia, who had seemingly already gained a 
wide dominion there. These foreign usurpers, now 
known as the Hyksos, after Manetho's designation of 
them, maintained themselves for perhaps a century. 
Their residence was at Avar is in the eastern Delta, 
and at least during the later part of their supremacy, 
the Egyptian nobles of the South succeeded in gaining 
more or less independence. Finally the head of a 
Theban family boldly proclaimed himself king, and in 
the course of some years these Theban princes suc- 
ceeded in expelling the Hyksos from the country, and 
driving them back from the Asiatic frontier into Syria. 
20. It was under the Hyksos and in the struggle with 
them that the conservatism of millennia was broken 
up in the Nile valley. The Egyptians learned aggres- 
sive war for the first time, and introduced a well or- 
ganized military system, including chariotry, which the 
importation of the horse by the Hyksos now enabled 
them to do. Egypt was transformed into a military 
empire. In the struggle with the Hyksos and with 
each other, the old feudal families perished, or were 
absorbed among the partisans of the dominant Theban 
family, from which the imperial line sprang. The 
great Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty thus be- 
came emperors, conquering and ruling from northern 
Syria and the upper Euphrates, to the fourth cataract 
of the Nile on the south. Amid unprecedented wealth 
and splendour, they ruled their vast dominions, which 
they gradually welded together into a fairly stable 
empire, the first known in the early world. Thebes 
grew into a great metropolis, the earliest monumental 
city. Extensive trade relations with the East and the 
Mediterranean world developed; Mycenaean products 
were common in Egypt, and Egyptian influences are 



20 INTRODUCTION 

clearly discernible in Mycenaean art. For two hundred 
and thirty years (1580-1350 b. c.) the Empire flour- 
ished, but was wrecked at last by a combination of 
adverse influences both within and without. A relig- 
ious revolution by the young and gifted king Ikhnaton, 
caused an internal convulsion such as the country had 
never before experienced; while the empire in the 
north gradually disintegrated under the aggressions of 
the Hittites, who pushed in from Asia Minor. At the 
same time in both the northern and southern Asiatic 
dominions of the Pharaoh, an overflow of Beduin im- 
migration, among which were undoubtedly some of the 
tribes who later coalesced with the Israelites, aggravated 
the danger, and together with the persistent advance of 
the Hittites, finally resulted in the complete dissolution 
of the Asiatic empire of Egypt, down to the very frontier 
of the northeastern Delta. Meanwhile the internal 
disorders had caused the fall of the Eighteenth Dy- 
nasty, an event which terminated the first Period of 
the Empire (1350 b. a). 

21. Harmhab, one of the able commanders under 
the fallen dynasty, survived the crisis and finally seized 
the throne. Under his vigorous rule the disorganized 
nation was gradually restored to order, and his succes- 
sors of the Nineteenth Dynasty (1350-1205 B. c.) were 
able to begin the recovery of the lost empire in Asia. 
But the Hittites were too firmly entrenched in Syria 
to yield to the Egyptian onset. The assaults of Seti I, 
and half a generation of persistent campaigning under 
Ramses II, failed to push the northern frontier of the 
Empire far beyond the limits of Palestine. Here it 
remained and Syria was never permanently recovered. 
Semitic influences now powerfully affected Egypt. At 
this juncture the peoples of southern Europe emerge 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 21 

for the first time upon the arena of oriental history and 
together with Libyan hordes, threaten to overwhelm 
the Delta from the west. They were nevertheless 
beaten back by Merneptah. After another period of 
internal confusion and usurpation, during which the 
Nineteenth Dynasty fell (1205 B. a), Ramses III, 
whose father, Setnakht founded the Twentieth Dy- 
nasty (1200-1090 B. a), was able to maintain the 
Empire at the same limits, against the invasions of 
restless northern tribes, who crushed the Hittite power; 
and also against repeated immigrations of the Libyans. 
With his death (1167 b. c.) the Empire, with the ex- 
ception of Nubia, which was still held, rapidly fell to 
pieces. Thus, about the middle of the twelfth century 
B. c. the Second Period of the imperial age closed with 
the total dissolution of the Asiatic dominions. 

22. Under a series of weak Ramessids, the country 
rapidly declined and fell a prey first to the powerful 
high priests of Amon, who were obliged almost imme- 
diately to yield to stronger Ramessid rivals in the Delta 
at Tanis, forming the Twenty-First Dynasty (1090- 
945 B. a). By the middle of the tenth century b. c. 
the mercenary chiefs, whose followers had formed the 
armies of the second imperial period, had founded 
powerful families in the Delta cities, and among these 
the Libyans were now supreme. Sheshonk I, a 
Libyan mercenary commander, gained the throne as 
the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty in 945 B. c. 
and the country enjoyed transient prosperity, while 
Sheshonk even attempted the recovery of Palestine. 
But the family was unable to control the turbulent 
mercenary lords, now established as dynasts in the 
larger Delta towns, and the country gradually relapsed 
into a series of military principalities in constant war- 



22 INTRODUCTION 

fare with each other. Through the entire Libyan 
period of the Twenty-second, Twenty-third and 
Twenty-fourth Dynasties (945-712 b. c.) the un- 
happy nation groaned under such misrule, constantly 
suffering economic deterioration. 

23. Nubia had now detached itself and a dynasty of 
kings, probably of Theban origin had arisen at Napata, 
below the Fourth Cataract. These Egyptian rulers of 
the new Nubian kingdom now invaded Egypt, and 
although residing at Napata, maintained their sover- 
eignty in Egypt with varying fortune for two genera- 
tions (722-663 b. a). But they were unable to sup- 
press and exterminate the local dynasts, who ruled on, 
while acknowledging the suzerainty of the Nubian 
overlord. It was in the midst of these conflicts between 
the Nubian dynasty and the mercenary lords of Lower 
Egypt, that the Assyrians finally entered the Delta, 
subdued the country and placed it under tribute (670- 
660 b. a). At this juncture Psamtik I, an able 
dynast of Sais, in the western Delta, finally succeeded 
in overthrowing his rivals, expelled the Ninevite garri- 
sons, and as the Nubians had already been forced 
out of the country by the Assyrians, he was able to 
found a powerful dynasty, and usher in the Restoration. 
His accession fell in 663 b. c, and the entire period of 
nearly five hundred years from the final dissolution of 
the Empire about 1150 to the dawn of the Restoration 
in 663 B. c, may be conveniently designated the 
Decadence. After 1100 b. c. the Decadence may be 
conveniently divided into the Tanite-Amonite Period 
(1090-945 b. a), the Libyan Period (945-712 b. c), 
the Ethiopian Period (722-663 b. c), and the Assyrian 
Period, which is contemporary with the last years of 
the Ethiopian Period. 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 23 

24. Of the Restoration, like all those epochs in which 
the seat of power was in the Delta, where almost all 
monuments have perished, we learn very little from 
native sources; and all too little also from Herodotus 
and later Greek visitors in the Nile valley. It was 
outwardly an age of power and splendour, in which 
the native party endeavoured to restore the old glories 
of the classic age before the Empire; while the kings 
depending upon Greek mercenaries, were modern 
politicians, employing the methods of the new Greek 
world, mingling in the world-politics of their age and 
showing little sympathy with the archaizing tendency. 
But their combinations failed to save Egypt from the 
ambition of Persia, and its history under native dy- 
nasties, with unimportant exceptions, was concluded 
with the conquest of the country by Cambyses in 525 
B. c. 

25. Such, in mechanical review, were the purely 
external events which marked the successive epochs of 
Egypt's history as an independent nation. With their 
dates, these epochs may be summarized thus: 

Introduction of the Calendar, 4241 B. c. 

Predynastic Age, before 3400 B. c. 

The Accession of Menes, 3400 B. c. 

The first Two Dynasties, 3400-2980 b. c. 

The Old Kingdom: Dynasties Three to Six, 2980- 
2475 b. c. 

Dynasties Seven and Eight, 2475-2445 b. c. 

Eighteen Heracleopolitans, Dynasties Nine and Ten, 
2445-2160 b. c. 

The Middle Kingdom : Dynasties Eleven and Twelve 
2160-1788 b. c. 

Internal Conflicts of the Feudatories, ) 1788-1580 

The Hyksos, \ b. c. 



The Decadence 



24 INTRODUCTION 

The Empire: First Period, the Eighteenth Dynasty, 
1580-1350 b. c. 

The Empire: Second Period, the Nineteenth and 
part of the Twentieth Dynasty, 1350-1150 b. c. 

Last Two Generations of Twentieth 

Dynasty, about 1150 to 1090 b. c. 

Tanite-Amonite Period, Twenty-first 

Dynasty, 1090-945 b. c. 
Libyan Period, Dynasties Twenty- 
two to Twenty-four, 945-712 b. c. 
Ethiopian Period, 722-663 B. c. 
(Twenty-fifth Dynasty, 712-661 

B. C. 

Assyrian Supremacy, 670-660 b. c. 

The Restoration, 660-525 b. c. (Sake Period, 
Twenty-sixth Dynasty, 663-525 .B. c). 

Persian Conquest, 525 B. c. 

26. The reader will find at the end of the volume a 
fuller table of reigns. The chronology of the above 
table is obtained by two independent processes : first by 
"dead reckoning," and second by astronomical calcula- 
tions based on the Egyptian calendar. By "dead 
reckoning" we mean simply the addition of the known 
minimum length of all the kings' reigns, and from the 
total thus obtained, the simple computation (backward 
from a fixed starting point) of the date of the beginning 
of the series of reigns so added. Employing all the 
latest dates from recent discoveries, it is mathematically 
certain that from the accession of the Eighteenth Dy- 
nasty to the conquest of the Persians in 525 b. c. the 
successive Pharaohs reigned at least 1052 years in all 
(BAR, I, 47-51). The Eighteenth Dynasty therefore 
began not later than 1577 b. c. Astronomical calcula- 
tions (independent of the above dead reckoning), based 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 25 

on the date of the rising of Sirius, and of the occur- 
rence of new moons both in terms of the shifting 
Egyptian calendar, place the date of the accession of 
the Eighteenth Dynasty with fair precision in 1580 
B. c. (BAR, I, 38-46). For the periods earlier than 
the Eighteenth Dynasty, we can no longer employ the 
method of dead reckoning alone, because of the scanti- 
ness of the contemporary documents. Fortunately an- 
other calendar date of the rising of Sirius, fixes the 
advent of the Twelfth Dynasty at 2000 b. c, with a 
margin of uncertainty of not more than a year or two 
either way. From this date the beginning of the 
Eleventh Dynasty is again only a matter of "dead 
reckoning." The uncertainty as to the duration of the 
Heracleopolitan supremacy makes the length of the 
period between the Old and Middle Kingdoms very 
uncertain. If we give the eighteen Heracleopolitans 
sixteen years each, which, under orderly conditions, is 
a fair average in the Orient, they will have ruled 288 
years (BAR, I, 53). In estimating their duration at 
285 years, we may err possibly as much as a century 
either way. The computation of the length of the Old 
Kingdom is based on contemporary monuments and 
early lists, in which the margin of error is probably not 
more than a generation or two either way, but the un- 
certain length of the Heracleopolitan rule affects all 
dates back of that age, and a shift of a century either 
way in the years B. c. is not impossible. The ancient 
annals of the Palermo Stone establish the length of the 
first two dynasties at roughly 420 years (MC, 201 /., 
BAR, I, 84-85), and the date of the accession of Menes 
and the union of Egypt as 3400 B. c; but we carry 
back with us, from the Heracleopolitan age, the same 
wide margin of uncertainty as in the Old Kingdom. 



26 INTRODUCTION 

The reader will have observed that this system of 
chronology is based upon the contemporary monu- 
ments and lists dating not later than 1200 b. c. The 
extremely high dates for the beginning of the dynasties 
current in some histories are inherited from an older 
generation of Egyptologists; and are based upon the 
chronology of Manetho, a late, careless, and uncritical 
compilation, the dynastic totals of which can be proven 
wrong from the contemporary monuments in the vast 
majority of cases, where such monuments have sur- 
vived. Its dynastic totals are so absurdly high through- 
out, that they are not worthy of a moment's credence, 
being often nearly or quite double the maximum drawn 
from contemporary monuments, and they will not stand 
the slightest careful criticism. Their accuracy is now 
maintained only by a small and constantly decreasing 
number of modern scholars. 

27. Like our chronology our knowledge of the early 
history of Egypt must be gleaned from the contempo- 
rary native monuments (BAR, I, 1-37). Monumental 
records, even when full and complete are at best but 
insufficient sources, affording data for only the meagrest 
outlines of great achievements and important epochs. 
While the material civilization of the country found 
adequate expression in magnificent works of the artist, 
craftsman and engineer, the inner life of the nation, 
or even the purely external events of moment could 
find record only incidentally. Such documents are 
sharply differentiated from the materials with which 
the historian of European nations deals, except of 
course in his study of the earliest ages. Extensive 
correspondence between statesmen, journals and diaries, 
state documents and reports — such materials as these 
are almost wholly wanting in monumental records. 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 27 

Imagine writing a history of Greece from the few Greek 
inscriptions surviving. Moreover, we possess no his- 
tory of Egypt of sufficiently early date by a native 
Egyptian; the compilation of puerile folk-tales by 
Manetho, in the third century b. c. is hardly worthy 
of the name history. But an annalist of the remote 
ages with which we are to deal, could have had little 
conception of what would be important for future ages 
to know, even if he had undertaken a full chronicle of 
historical events. Scanty annals were indeed kept 
from the earliest times, but these have entirely perished 
with the exception of two fragments, the now famous 
Palermo Stone (BAR, I, 76-167; BH, 24), which once 
bore the annals of the earliest dynasties from the 
beginning down into the Fifth Dynasty; and some ex- 
tracts from the records of Thutmose Ill's campaigns 
in Syria. Of the other monuments of incidental char- 
acter but the merest fraction has survived. Under 
these circumstances we shall probably never be able to 
offer more than a sketch of the civilization of the Old 
and Middle Kingdoms, with a hazy outline of the 
general drift of events. Under the Empire the avail- 
able documents, both in quality and quantity, for the 
first time approach the minimum, which in European 
history would be regarded as adequate to a moderately 
full presentation of the career of the nation. Scores of 
important questions, however, still remain unanswered, 
in whatever direction we turn. Nevertheless a rough 
frame-work of the governmental organization, the con- 
stitution of society, the most important achievements 
of the emperors, and to a limited extent the spirit of 
the age, may be discerned and sketched in the main 
outlines, even though it is only here and there that 
the sources enable us to fill in the detail. In the De- 



28 INTRODUCTION 

cadence and the Restoration, however, the same pau- 
city of documents, so painfully apparent in the older 
periods, again leaves the historian with a long series 
of hypotheses and probabilities. For the reserve with 
which the author has constantly treated such periods, 
he begs the reader to hold the scanty sources responsible 
(BAR, I, 1-26). 



Ill 

EARLIEST EGYPT 

28. The forefathers of the people with whom we 
shall have to deal were related to the Libyans or north 
Africans on the one hand, and on the other to the 
peoples of eastern Africa, now known as the Galla, 
Somali, Bega, and other tribes. An invasion of the 
Nile valley by Semitic nomads of Asia, stamped its 
essential character unmistakably upon the language of 
the African people there. The earliest strata of the 
Egyptian language accessible to us, betray clearly this 
composite origin. While still coloured by its African 
antecedents, the language is in structure Semitic. It 
is moreover a completed product as observable in our 
earliest preserved examples of it; but the fusion of the 
Libyans and east Africans with the Nile valley peoples 
continued far into historic times, and in the case of 
the Libyans may be traced in ancient historical docu- 
ments for three thousand years or more. The Semitic 
immigration from Asia, examples of which are also 
observable in the historic age, occurred in an epoch 
that lies far below our remotest historical horizon. 
We shall never be able to determine when, nor with 
certainty through what channels it took place, al- 
though the most probable route is that along which 
we may observe a similar influx from the deserts of 
Arabia in historic times, the isthmus of Suez, by which 

29 



30 INTRODUCTION 

J 

the Mohammedan invasion entered the country. While 
the Semitic language which they brought with them 
left its indelible impress upon the old Nile valley people, 
the nomadic life of the desert which the invaders left 
behind them evidently was not so persistent, and the 
religion of Egypt, that element of life which always 
receives the stamp of its environment, shows no trace 
of desert life. The affinities observable in the language 
are confirmed in case of the Libyans by the surviving 
products of archaic civilization in the Nile valley, such 
as some of the early pottery, which closely resembles 
that still made by the Libyan Kabyles. Again the rep- 
resentations of the early Puntites, or Somali people, on 
the Egyptian monuments, show striking resemblances 
to the Egyptians themselves. The examination of the 
bodies exhumed from archaic burials in the Nile valley, 
which we had hoped might bring further evidence for 
the settlement of the ethnic problem, has, however, 
produced such diversity of opinion among the physical 
anthropologists, as to render it impossible for the 
historian to obtain decisive results from their researches. 
It has, however, been shown that the prehistoric and 
the historic Egyptians as now found in the ancient 
cemeteries are identical in race. 

29. As found in the earliest burials to-day, the pre- 
dynastic Egyptians were a dark-haired people, already 
possessed of the rudiments of civilization. The men 
wore a skin over the shoulders, sometimes skin drawers, 
and again only a short white linen kilt; while the 
women were clothed in long garments of some textile, 
probably linen, reaching from the shoulders to the 
ankles. Statuettes of both sexes without clothing 
whatever are, however, very common. Sandals were 
not unknown. They occasionally tattooed their bodies, 



EARLIEST EGYPT 31 

and they also wrought ornaments such as rings, brace- 
lets and pendants of stone, ivory and bone; with beads / 
of flint, quartz, carnelian, agate and the like. The 
women dressed their hair with ornamented ivory combs 
and pins. For the eye- and face-paint necessary for 
the toilet they had palettes of carved slate on which 
the green colour was ground. They were able to build 
dwellings of wattle, sometimes smeared with mud, and 
probably later of sun-dried brick. In the furnishing 
of these houses they displayed considerable mechanical 
skill, and a rudimentary artistic taste. They ate with 
ivory spoons, sometimes even richly carved with figures 
of animals in the round, marching along the handle. 
Although the wheel was at first unknown to them, they 
produced fine pottery of the most varied forms in vast 
quantities. The museums of Europe and America are 
now filled with their polished red and black ware, or a 
variety with incised geometrical designs, sometimes in 
basket patterns, while another style of great importance 
to us is painted with rude representations of boats, men, 
animals, birds, fish or trees. While they made no ob- 
jects of glass, they understood the art of glazing beads, 
plaques and the like. Crude statuettes in wood, ivory, 
or stone, represent the beginnings of that plastic art 
which was to achieve such triumphs in the early dy- 
nastic age; and three large stone statues of Min, found 
by Petrie at Coptos, display the rude strength of the 
predynastic civilization of which we are now speaking. 
The art of the prolific potter was obliged to give way 
slowly to the artificer in stone, who finally produced 
excellent stone vessels, which, on gaining the use of 
copper tools, he rapidly improved toward the end of the 
predynastic period, when his bowls and jars in the 
hardest stones, like the diorites and porphyries, display 



32 INTRODUCTION 

magnificent work. The most cunningly wrought flints 
that have ever been found among any people belong to 
this age. The makers were ultimately able to affix 
carved ivory hafts, and with equal skill they put together 
stone and flint axes, flint-headed fish-spears and the 
like. The war mace with pear-shaped head, as found 
also in Babylonia, is characteristic of the age. Side by 
side with such weapons and implements they also pro- 
duced and used weapons and implements of copper. 
It is indeed the age of the slow transition from stone to 
copper. Gold, silver and lead, while rare, were in use. 
30. In the fruitful Nile valley we cannot think of 
such a people as other than chiefly agricultural; and 
the fact that they emerge into historical times as agri- 
culturalists, with an ancient religion of vastly remote 
prehistoric origin, whose symbols and outward mani- 
festations clearly betray the primitive fancies of an 
agricultural and pastoral people — all this would lead 
to the same conclusion. In the unsubdued jungles of 
the Nile, animal life was of course much more plentiful 
at that time than now; the elephant, giraffe, hippo- 
potamus and the strange okapi, which was deified as 
the god Set, wandered through the jungles, though all 
these animals were later extinct. These early men 
were therefore great hunters, as well as skilful fisher- 
men. They pursued the most formidable game of the 
desert, like the lion or the wild ox, with bows and 
arrows; and in light boats they attacked the hippo- 
potamus and the crocodile with harpoons and lances. 
They commemorated these and like deeds in rude pict- 
ures incised on the rocks, where they are still found 
in the Nile valley, covered with a heavy brown patina 
of weathering, such as historic sculptures never display; 
thus showing their vast age. 



EARLIEST EGYPT 33 

31. Their industries may have resulted in rudi- 
mentary commerce for, besides their small hunting- 
boats, they built vessels of considerable size on the Nile, 
apparently propelled by many oars and guided by a 
large rudder. Sailing ships were rare, but they were 
not unknown. Their vessels bore standards, probably 
indicating the place from which each hailed, for among 
them appear what may be the crossed arrows of the 
goddess Neit of Sais, while an elephant immediately 
suggests the later Elephantine. These ensigns are, in 
some cases, strikingly similar to those later employed 
in hieroglyphic as the standards of the local communi- 
ties, and their presence on the early ships suggests the 
existence of such communities in those prehistoric days. 
The later administrative or feudal divisions of the 
country in historic times, the nomes, as the Greeks 
called them, to which we shall often have occasion to 
refer, are likely to have been survivals of such prehis- 
toric petty states as these standards suggest. If this 
be true, there were probably some twenty such states 
distributed along the river in Upper Egypt. However 
this may be, these people were already at a stage of 
civilization where considerable towns appear and city- 
states, as in Babylonia, must have developed, each with 
its chief or dynast, its local god, worshipped in a crude 
sanctuary; and its market to which the tributary, out- 
lying country was attracted. The long process by 
which such communities grew up can be only surmised 
from the analogy of similar developments elsewhere, 
for the small kingdoms and city-states, out of which 
the nation was ultimately consolidated, do not fall 
within the historic age, as in Babylonia. 

32. The gradual fusion which finally merged these 
petty states into two kingdoms: one in the Delta, and 



34 INTRODUCTION 

the other comprising the states of the valley above, is 
likewise a process of which we shall never know the 
course. Of its heroes and its conquerors, its wars and 
conquests, not an echo will ever reach us; nor is there 
the slightest indication of the length of time consumed 
by this process. It will hardly have been concluded, 
however, before 4000 B. c. Our knowledge of the 
two kingdoms which emerged at the end of this long 
prehistoric age is but slightly more satisfactory. The 
Delta was. through the historic age, open to inroads of 
the Libyans who dwelt upon the west of it; and the con- 
stant influx of people from this source gave the western 
Delta a distinctly Libyan character which it preserved 
even down to the time of Herodotus. At the earliest mo- 
ment, when the monuments reveal the conditions in the 
Delta, the Pharaoh is contending with the Libyan in- 
vaders, and the earlier kingdom of the North will there- 
fore have been strongly Libyan, if indeed it did not owe 
its origin to this source. Reliefs recently discovered at 
Abusir show four Libyan chieftains wearing on their 
brows the royal urgeus serpent of the Pharaohs, to 
whom it therefore descended from some early Libyan 
king of the Delta. The temple at Sais, in the western 
Delta, the chief centre of Libyan influence in Egypt, 
bore the name "House of the King of Lower Egypt'' 
the Delta . and the emblem of Neit. its chief goddess 
was tattooed by the Libyans upon their arms. It inay 
therefore have been an early residence of a Libyan 
king of the Delta, although the capital of the North 
was traditionally Buto. As its coat of arms or symbol 
the Northern Kingdom employed a tuft of papyrus 
plant, which grew so plentifully in its marsh 
be distinctive of it. The king himself was designated 
by a bee, and wore upon his head a red crown, 



EARLIEST EGYPT 35 

both in colour and shape peculiar to his kingdom. 
All of these symbols are very common in later hiero- 
glyphic. Red was the distinctive colour of the north- 
ern kingdom and its treasury was called the "Red 
House." 

33. Unfortunately the Delta is so deeply overlaid 
with deposits of Nile mud that the material remains^ 
of its earliest civilization are buried forever frorp our 
reach. That civilization was probably earlier and 
more advanced than that of the valley above. Already 
in the forty-third century B.C. the men of the Delta 
had discovered the year of three hundred and sixty-five 
days and they introduced a calendar year of this length, 
beginning on the day when Sirius rose at sunrise, as 
determined in the latitude of the southern Delta, where 
these earliest astronomers lived, in 4241 B.C. (MC, 
38 ff .). It is the civilization of the Delta, therefore,\which 
furnishes us with the earliest fixed date in the history 
of the world. It was thus also these men of the Delta 
who furnished the modern civilized world with its 
calendar, which, as they devised it, with twelve thirty- 
day months and five intercalary feast days, was the 
only practical calendar known in antiquity. The year 
began on that day when Sirius first appeared on the 
eastern horizon at sunrise (the heliacal rising), which in 
our calendar was on the nineteenth of July (Julian). 
But as this calendar year was in reality about a quarter 
of a day shorter than the solar year, it therefore gained 
a full day every four years, thus slowly revolving on the 
astronomical year, passing entirely around it once in 
fourteen hundred and sixty years, only to begin the 
revolution again. An astronomical event like the 
heliacal rising of Sirius, when dated in terms of the 
Egyptian calendar, may therefore be computed and 



36 INTRODUCTION 

dated within four years in terms of our reckoning, that 
is, in years B.C. 

34. The kingdom of Upper Egypt was more dis- 
tinctively Egyptian than that of the Delta. It had its 
capital at Nekheb, modern El Kab, and its standard or 
symbol was a lily plant, while another southern plant 
served as the ensign of the king, who was further dis- 
tinguished by a tall white crown, white being the colour 
of the Southern Kingdom. Its treasury was therefore 
known as the "'White House." There was a royal 
residence across the river from Nekheb, called Nekhen, 
the later Hieraconpolis, while corresponding to it in 
the Northern Kingdom was a suburb of Buto, called Pe. 
Each capital had its patroness or protecting goddess: 
Buto, the serpent-goddess, in the North; and in the 
South the vulture-goddess, Nekhbet. But at both 
capitals the hawk-god Horus was worshipped as the 
distinctive patron deity of both kings. The people of 
the time believed in a life hereafter, subject to wants of 
the same nature as those of the present life. Their 
cemeteries are widely distributed along the margin of 
the desert in Upper Egypt, and of late years thousands 
of interments have been excavated. The tomb is usu- 
ally a flat-bottomed oval or rectangular pit, in which 
the body, doubled into the "contracted" or "embry- 
onic" posture, lies on its side. In the earliest burials 
it is wrapped in a skin, but later also in woven fabric; 
there is no trace of embalmment. Beneath the body 
is frequently a mat of plaited rushes; it often has in 
the hand or at the breast a slate palette for grinding 
face-paint, the green malachite for which lies near in a 
small bag. The body is besides accompanied by other 
articles of toilet or of adornment and is surrounded by 
jars of pottery or stone containing ash or organic 



EARLIEST EGYPT 37 

matter, the remains of food, drink and ointment for the 
deceased in the hereafter. Not only were the toilet and 
other bodily wants of the deceased thus provided for, 
but he was also given his flint weapons or bone-tipped 
harpoons that he might replenish his larder from the 
chase. Clay models of objects which he might need 
were also given him, especially boats. The pits are 
sometimes roughly roofed over with branches, covered 
with a heap of desert sand and gravel, forming rudi- 
mentary tombs, and later they came to be lined with 
crude, sun-dried brick. Sometimes a huge, roughly 
hemispherical bowl of pottery was inverted over the 
body as it lay in the pit. These burials furnish the sole 
contemporary material for our study of the predynastic 
age. The gods of the hereafter were appealed to in 
prayers and magical formulae, which eventually took 
conventional and traditional form in writing. A thou- 
sand years later in the dynastic age fragments of these 
mortuary texts are found in use in the pyramids of the 
Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (see pp. 65-8). Pepi I, a 
king of the Sixth Dynasty, in his rebuilding of the 
Dendereh temple, claimed to be reproducing a plan of 
a sanctuary of the predynastic kings on that spot. 
Temples of some sort they therefore evidently had. 

35. While they thus early possessed all the rudiments 
of material culture, the people of this age developed a 
system of writing also. The computations necessary 
for the discovery and use of the calendar show a use of 
writing in the last centuries of the fifth millennium B. c. 
It is shown also by the fact that nearly a thousand years 
later the scribes of the Fifth Dynasty were able to copy 
a long list of the kings of the North, and perhaps those 
of the South also (BAR, I, 76-167); while the mortuary 
texts to which we have referred will not have survived 



38 INTRODUCTION 

a thousand years without having been committed to 
writing in the same way. The hieroglyphs for the 
Northern Kingdom, for its king, and for its treasury 
cannot have arisen at one stroke with the first king of 
the dynastic age; but must have been in use long 
before the rise of the First Dynasty; while the presence 
of a cursive linear hand at the beginning of the dy- 
nasties is conclusive evidence that the system was not 
then a recent innovation. 

36. Of the deeds of these remote kings of the North 
and South, who passed away before three thousand four 
hundred B.C., we know nothing. Their tombs have 
never been discovered, a fact which accounts for the 
lack of any written monuments among the contem- 
porary documents, all of which come from tombs of 
the poorer classes, such as contain no writing even in 
the dynastic age. Seven names of the kings of the 
Delta, like Seka, Khayu, or Thesh, alone of all the line 
have survived ; but of the Southern Kingdom not even 
a royal name has descended to us, unless it be that of 
the Scorpion, which, occurring on some few remains 
of this early age, was probably that of one of the power- 
ful chieftains of the South (BAR, I, 166). The scribes 
of the Fifth Dynasty who drew up this list of kings, 
some eight hundred years after the line had passed 
away, seem to have known only the royal names, and 
were unable to, or at least did not record, any of their 
achievements (BAR, I, 90). As a class these kings of 
the North and South were known to their posterity as 
the "worshippers of Horus"; and as ages passed they 
became half-mythic figures, gradually to be endowed 
with semi-divine attributes, until they were regarded 
as the demi-gods who succeeded the divine dynasties, 
the great gods who had ruled Egypt in the beginning 



EARLIEST EGYPT 39 

(SU, III). Their original character as deceased kings, 
as known to the earlier dynasties, led to their being 
considered especially as a line of the divine dead who 
had ruled over the land before the accession of human 
kings; and in the historical work of Manetho they 
appear simply as "the dead." Thus their real histor- 
ical character was finally completely sublimated, then 
to merge into unsubstantial myth, and the ancient kings 
of the North and the South were worshipped in the 
capitals where they had once ruled. 

37. The next step in the long and slow evolution of 
national unity was the union of the North and the South. 
The tradition which was still current in the days of the 
Greeks in Egypt, to the effect that the two kingdoms 
were united by a king named Menes, is fully confirmed 
by the evidence of the early monuments. The figure of 
Menes, but a few years since as vague and elusive as 
those of the "worshippers of Horus," who preceded him, 
has now been clothed with unmistakable reality, and 
he at last steps forth into history to head the long line 
of Pharaohs who have yet to pass us in review. It 
must have been a skilful warrior and a vigorous ad- 
ministrator, who thus gathered the resources of the 
Southern Kingdom so well in hand that he was able 
to invade and conquer the Delta, and thus merge the 
two kingdoms into one nation, completing the long 
process of centralization which had been going on for 
many centuries. His native city was Thinis, an ob- 
scure place in the vicinity of Abydos, which was not 
near enough to the centre of his new kingdom to serve 
as his residence, and we can easily credit the narrative 
of Herodotus that he built a great dam, diverting the 
course of the Nile above the site of Memphis that he 
might gain room there for a city. This stronghold, 



40 INTRODUCTION 

perhaps not yet called Memphis, was probably known 
as the "White Wall," in reference of course to the 
White Kingdom, whose power it represented. If we 
may believe the tradition of Herodotus' time, it was 
from this place, situated so favourably on the border 
between the two kingdoms, that Menes probably gov- 
erned the new nation which he had created. He carried 
his arms also southward against northern Nubia (NGH, 
20), which then extended below the first cataract as far 
northward as the nome of Edfu. According to the 
tradition of Manetho, he was blessed with a long reign, 
and the memory of his great achievement was imperish- 
able, as we have seen. He was buried in Upper Egypt, 
either at Abydos near his native Thinis, or some dis- 
tance above it near the modern village of Negadeh, 
where a large brick tomb, probably his, still survives. 
In it and similar tombs of his successors at Abydos 
written monuments of his reign have been found, and 
even a golden fragment of his royal adornments, bear- 
ing his name, which this ancient founder of the Egyptian 
state wore upon his person. 

38. The kings of this remote protodynastic age are no 
longer merely a series of names as but a few years since 
they still were. As a group at least, we know much 
of their life and its surroundings; although we shall 
never be able to discern them as possessed of distinguish- 
able personality. They blend together without distinc- 
tion as children of their age. The outward insignia 
which all alike employed were now accommodated to 
the united kingdom. The king's favourite title was 
"Horus," by which he identified himself as the suc- 
cessor of the great god who had once ruled over, the 
kingdom. Everywhere, on royal documents, seals and 
the like, appeared the Horus-hawk as the symbol of 



EARLIEST EGYPT 41 

royalty. He was mounted upon a rectangle represent- 
ing the facade of a building, probably the king's palace, 
within which was written the king's official name. The 
other or personal name of the ruler was preceded by 
the bee of the North and the plant of the Southern 
King, to indicate that he had now absorbed both titles; 
while with these two symbols there often appeared also 
Nekhbet, the vulture-goddess of El Kab, the southern 
capital, side by side with Buto, the serpent-goddess of 
the northern capital. On the sculptures of the time, 
the protecting vulture hovers with outspread wings 
over the head of the king, but as he felt himself still 
as primarily king of Upper Egypt, it was not until 
later that he wore the serpent of the North, the sacred 
urseus upon his forehead. Similarly Set sometimes ap- 
pears with Horus, preceding the king's personal name, 
the two gods thus representing the North and the South, 
dividing the land between them in accordance with the 
myth which we shall later have occasion to discuss. 
The monarch wore the crown of either kingdom, and he 
is often spoken of as the "double lord." Thus his 
dominion over a united Egypt was constantly pro- 
claimed. 

39. We see the king on ceremonious occasions ap- 
pearing in some state, preceded by four standard- 
bearers and accompanied by his chancellor, personal 
attendants, or a scribe, and two fan-bearers. He wore 
the white crown of Upper or the red crown of Lower 
Egypt, or even a curious combination of the crowns of 
both kingdoms, and a simple garment suspended by a 
strap over one shoulder, to which a lion's tail was ap- 
pended behind. So dressed and so attended he con- 
ducted triumphant celebrations of his victories or led 
the ceremonies at the opening of canals or the inaugura- 



42 INTRODUCTION 

tion of public works. On the thirtieth anniversary of 
his appointment by his father as crown prince to the 
heirship of the kingdom, the king celebrated a great 
jubilee called the "Feast of Sed," a word meaning 
"tail,'* and perhaps commemorating his assumption 
of the royal lion's tail at his appointment thirty years 
before. He was a mighty hunter, and recorded with 
pride an achievement like the slaying of a hippopotamus. 
His weapons were costly and elaborate, as we shall see. 
His several palaces each bore a name, and the royal 
estate possessed gardens and vineyards, the latter being 
also named and carefully administered by officials who 
were responsible for the income therefrom. 

40. The furniture of such a palace, even in this re- 
mote age, was magnificent and of fine artistic quality. 
Among it were vessels exquisitely wrought in some 
eighteen or twenty different varieties of stone, espe- 
cially alabaster; even in such refractory material as 
diorite, superb bowls were ground to translucent thin- 
ness, and jars of rock crystal were carved with match- 
less precision to represent natural objects. The pot- 
tery, on the other hand, perhaps because of the perfec- 
tion of the stone vessels, is inferior to that of the pre- 
dynastic age. The less substantial furniture has for 
the most part perished, but chests of ebony inlaid with 
ivory and stools with legs of ivory magnificently carved 
to represent bull's legs, have survived in fragments. 
Glaze was now more thoroughly mastered than before, 
and incrustation with glazed plaques and ivory tablets 
was practiced. The coppersmith furnished the palace 
with finely wrought bowls, ewers, and other vessels of 
copper; while he materially aided in the perfection of 
stone vase-making by the production of excellent copper 
tools. The goldsmith combined with a high degree of 



EARLIEST EGYPT 43 

technical skill also exquisite taste, and produced for 
the king's person and for the ladies of the royal house- 
hold magnificent regalia in gold and precious stones, 
involving the most delicate soldering of the metal, a 
process accomplished with a skill of which even a 
modern workman would not be ashamed. While the 
products of the industrial craftsman had thus risen to a 
point of excellence such that they claim a place as 
works of art, we find that the rude carvings and draw- 
ings of the predynastic people have now developed 
into reliefs and statues which clearly betray the pro- 
fessional artist. The kings dedicated in the temples, 
especially in that of Horus at Hieraconpolis, ceremo- 
nial slate palettes, maces and vessels, bearing reliefs 
which display a sure and practiced hand. The human 
and animal figures are done with surprising freedom 
and vigour, proclaiming an art long since conscious of 
itself and centuries removed from the naive efforts of a 
primitive people. By the time of the Third Dynasty 
the conventions of civilized life had laid a heavy hand 
upon this art; and although finish and power of faith- 
ful delineation had reached a level far surpassing that 
of the Hieraconpolis slates, the old freedom had disap- 
peared. In the astonishing statues of King Khasekhem 
at Hieraconpolis, the rigid canons which ruled the art of 
the Old Kingdom are already clearly discernible. 

41. The wreck of all this splendour, amid which these 
antique kings lived, has been rescued by Petrie from 
their tombs at Abydos. These tombs are the result of 
a natural evolution from the pits in which the predy- 
nastic people buried their dead. The pit, now rec- 
tangular and brick-lined, has been enlarged; while the 
surrounding jars of food and drink have developed into 
a series of small chambers surrounding the central 



44 INTRODUCTION 

room or pit, in which, doubtless, the body lay. The 
whole was roofed with heavy timbers and planking, 
probably surmounted by a heap of sand, and on the 
east front were set up two tall narrow stela? bearing the 
king's name. Access to the central chamber was had 
by a brick stairway descending through one side. The 
king's toilet furniture, a rich equipment of bowls, jars 
and vessels, metal vases and ewers, his personal orna- 
ments, and all that was necessary for the maintenance 
of royal state in the hereafter were deposited with his 
body in this tomb; while the smaller surrounding 
chambers were filled with a liberal supply of food and 
wine in enormous pottery jars, sealed with huge cones 
of Nile mud mixed with straw, and impressed while 
soft with the name of the king, or of the estate or vine- 
yard from which they came. The revenue in food and 
wine from certain of the king's estates was diverted and 
established as permanent income of the tomb to main- 
tain for all time the table supply of the deceased king 
and of his household and adherents, whose tombs, to 
the number of one or two hundred, were grouped about 
his own. Thus he was surrounded in death by those 
who had been his companions in life; his women, his 
body-guard, and even the dwarf, whose dances had 
diverted his idle hours, all sleep beside their lord that 
he may continue in the hereafter the state with which 
he had been environed on earth. Thus early began 
the elaborate arrangements of the Egyptian upper 
classes for the proper maintenance of the deceased in 
the life hereafter. 

42. This desire to create a permanent abiding-place 
for the royal dead exerted a powerful influence in the 
development of the art of building. Already in the 
First Dynasty we find a granite floor in one of the royal 






EARLIEST EGYPT 45 

tombs, that of Usephais, and toward the end of the 
Second Dynasty the surrounding brick chambers of 
King Khasekhemui's tomb enclose a chamber built of 
hewn limestone, the earliest stone masonry structure 
known in the history of man. His predecessor, prob- 
ably his father, had already built a stone temple which 
he recorded as a matter of note (BAR, I, 134), and 
Khasekhemui himself built a temple at Hieraconpolis, 
of which a granite door-post has survived. 

43. Such works of the skilled artificer and builder 
(for a number of royal architects were already attached 
to the court) indicate a well-ordered and highly organ- 
ized state; but of its character little can be discerned 
from the scanty materials at our command. The 
king's chief assistant and minister in government seems 
to have been a chancellor, whom we have seen attend- 
ing him on state occasions. The officials whom we 
later find as nobles with judicial functions, attached to 
the two royal residences of the North and South, Pe 
and Nekhen, already existed under these earliest 
dynasties, indicating an organized administration of 
judicial and juridical affairs. There was a body of fis- 
cal officials, whose seals we find upon payments of 
naturalia to the royal tombs, impressed upon the clay 
jar-sealings; while a fragment of a scribe's accounts 
evidently belonging to such an administration, was 
found in the Abydos royal tombs. The endowment 
of these tombs with a regularly paid income clearly 
indicates a fiscal organization, of which several offices, 
like the "provision office," are mentioned on the seals. 
In all probability all the land belonged to the estate of 
the king, by whom it was entrusted to a noble class. 
There were large estates conducted by these nobles, as 
in the period which immediately followed; but on 



46 ixtroduct: 

what terms they were held we cannot now determine. 
The people, with the possible exception of a free d 
of artificers and tradesmen, will have been slaves on 
these estates. They lived also in cities protected by 
heavy walls of sun-dried brick, and under the command 
of a local governor. The chief cities of the time were 
the two capitals. El Kab and Buto. with their royal 
suburbs of Xekhen or Hieraconpolis. and Pe; the 
'White Wall," the predecessor of Memphis; Thinis, 
the native city of the first two dynasties ; the neighbour- 
ing Abydos; Heliopolis, Heracleopolis and S hile 
a number of less importance appear in the Third 
Dyna 

44. Every two years a "numbering" of the royal 
possessions was made throughout the land by the 
officials of the treasury, and these "numberings" 
served as a partial basis for the chronological reckoning. 
The years of a king's reign were called, "Year of the 
F >: N: inhering," "Year after the First Numbering," 
ar of the Second Numbering," and so on. An 
earlier method was to name the year after some im- 
portant event which occurred in it, thus: "Year of 
Smiting the Troglodytes," a method found also in 
early Babylonia. But as the "numberings" finally 
became annual, they formed a more convenient basis 
for designating the year, as habit seemed to have 
deterred the scribes from numbering the years them- 
selves. Such a system of government and adm: 
tration as this of course could not operate without a 
method of writing, which we find in use both in elabo- 
rate hieroglvphics and in the rapid cursive hand of the 
accounting scribe. It already possessed not only pho- 
netic signs representing a whole syllable or group of 
consonants but also the alphabetic signs, each of which 



EARLIEST EGYPT 47 

stood for one consonant; true alphabetic letters having 
thus been discovered in Egypt two thousand five hun- 
dred years before their use by any other people. Had 
the Egyptian been less a creature of habit, he might 
have discarded his syllabic signs 3,500 years before 
Christ, and have written with an alphabet of twenty- 
four letters. In the documents of these early dynasties 
the writing is in such an archaic form that many of the 
scanty fragments which we possess from this age are 
as yet unintelligible to us. Yet it was the medium of 
recording medical and religious texts, to which in later 
times a peculiar sanctity and effectiveness were attri- 
buted. The chief events of each year were also re- 
corded in a few lines under its name, and a series of 
annals covering every year of a king's reign and show- 
ing to a day how long he reigned was thus produced. 
A small fragment only of these annals has escaped 
destruction, the now famous Palermo Stone, so called 
because it is at present in the museum of Palermo 
(BAR, I, 76-167; BH, Fig. 29). 

45. Already a state form of religion was developing, 
and it is this form alone of which we know anything; 
the religion of the people having left little or no trace. 
Even in the later dynasties we shall find little to say of 
the folk-religion, which was rarely a matter of per- 
manent record. The royal temple of Menes's time 
was still a simple structure, being little more than a 
shrine or chapel of wood, with walls of plaited wattle. 
There was an enclosed court before it, containing a 
symbol or emblem of the god mounted on a standard; 
and in front of the enclosure was a pair of poles, per- 
haps the forerunners of the pair of stone obelisks which 
in historic times were erected at the entrance of a tem- 
ple. By the second half of the Second Dynasty, how- 



Is INTRODUCTION 

ever, stone temples were built, as we have seen (BAR, 
I, 134). The kings frequently record in their annals 
the draughting of a temple plan, or their superintend- 
ence of the ceremonious inauguration of the work when 
the ground was measured and broken (BAR, I, 91- 
167). The great gods were those familiar in later 
times, whom we shall yet have occasion briefly to dis- 
cuss; we notice particularly Osiris and Set, Horus and 
Anubis, Thoth, Sokar, Min, and Apis a form of Ptah; 
while among the goddesses, Hathor and Neit are very 
prominent. Several of these, like Horus, were evi- 
dently the patron gods of prehistoric kingdoms, pre- 
ceding the kingdoms of the North and South, and thus 
going back to a very distant age. Horus, as under the 
predynastic kings, was the greatest god of the united 
kingdom, and occupied the position later held by Re. 
His temple at Hieraconpolis was especially favoured, 
and an old feast in his honour, called the "Worship of 
Horus," celebrated every two years, is regularly re- 
corded in the royal annals. The kings therefore con- 
tinued without interruption the traditions of the "Wor- 
shippers of Horus,' , as the successors of whom they 
regarded themselves. As long as the royal succession 
continued in the Thinite family, the worship of Horus 
was carefully observed; but with the ascendancy of 
the Third Dynasty, a Memphite family, it gradually 
gave way and was neglected. The priestly office was 
maintained of course as in the Old Kingdom by laymen, 
who were divided, as later, into four orders or phyles. 
46. The more than four hundred years during which 
the first two dynasties ruled must have been a period 
of constant and vigorous growth. Of the seven kings 
of Menes's line, who followed him during the first two 
centuries of that development, we can identify only two 



EARLIEST EGYPT 49 

with certainty: Miebis and Usephais; but we have 
contemporary monuments from twelve of the eighteen 
kings who ruled during this period. The first difficulty 
which confronted them was the reconciliation of the 
Northern Kingdom and its complete fusion with the 
larger nation. We have seen how, in administration, 
the two kingdoms remained distinct, and hinted that 
the union was a merely personal bond. The kings on 
ascending the throne celebrated a feast called "Union 
of the Two Lands (BAR, I, 140), by which the first 
year of each king's reign was characterized and named. 
This union, thus shown to be so fresh in their minds, 
could not at first be made effectual. The North re- 
belled again and again, causing bloody wars, in which 
the kings of the South, Narmer, Neterimu, and Khase- 
khem deported myriads of captives and cattle. We find 
the splendid memorials of their victories in the Horus 
temple at Hieraconpolis (QH, I, pi. 36-41; BAR, I, 
124). The later mythology attributed a lasting recon- 
ciliation of the two kingdoms to Osiris (Louvre Stela, 
C. 2). 

47. While the severe methods employed against the 
North must have seriously crippled its economic pros- 
perity, that of the nation as a whole probably continued 
to increase. The kings were constantly laying out new 
estates and building new palaces, temples and strong- 
holds. Public works, like the opening of irrigation 
canals or the wall of Menes above Memphis, show their 
solicitude for the economic resources of the kingdom, 
as well as a skill in engineering and a high conception of 
government such as we cannot but greatly admire in 
an age so remote. They were able also to undertake 
the earliest enterprises of which we know in foreign 
lands. King Semerkhet, early in the dynastic age, and 



50 INTRODUCTION 

probably during the First Dynasty, carried on mining 
operations in the copper regions of the Sinaitic penin- 
sula, in the Wady Maghara. His expedition was ex- 
posed to the depredations of the wild tribes of Beduin,. 
who, already in this remote age, peopled those districts; 
and he recorded his punishment of them in a relief 
upon the rocks of the wadi (WRS, p. 96). It is the 
oldest historical relief known to us. An ivory tablet of 
King Usephais, and a reference under the reign of 
Mirbis on the Palermo Stone commemorates other vic- 
tories over the same people (BAR, I, 104). Indeed 
there are indications that the kings of this time main- 
tained foreign relations with far remoter peoples. In 
their tombs have been found fragments of a peculiar, 
non-Egyptian pottery, closely resembling the orna- 
mented /Egean ware produced by the island peoples of 
the northern [Mediterranean in pre-Mycenyean times. 
If this pottery was placed in these tombs at the time of 
the original burials, there were commercial relations 
between Egypt and the northern Mediterranean peoples 
in the fourth millennium before Christ. We find an- 
other foreign connection in the north, in the occasional 
campaign now necessary to restrain the Libyans on the 
west (QH, I, pi. 15, No. 7). In the south at the first 
cataract, where, as late as the Sixth Dynasty, the 
Troglodyte tribes of the neighbouring eastern desert 
made it dangerous to operate the quarries there, King 
Usephais of the First Dynasty was able to maintain 
an expedition for the purpose of securing granite to 
pave one of the chambers of his tomb at Abydos. 

48. Scanty as are its surviving monuments, we see 
now gradually taking form the great state which is 
soon to emerge as the Old Kingdom. These earliest 
Pharaohs were buried, as we have seen, at Abydos or 



EARLIEST EGYPT 51 

in the vicinity, where nine of their tombs are known. 
A thousand years after they had passed away these 
tombs of the founders of the kingdom were neglected 
and forgotten, and as early as the twentieth century 
before Christ that of King Zer was mistaken for the 
tomb of Osiris (BAR, I, 662). When found in modern 
times it was buried under a mountain of potsherds, the 
remains of votive offerings left there by centuries of 
Osiris-worshippers. Its rightful occupants had long 
been torn from their resting-places, and their limbs, 
heavy with gold and precious stones, had been wrenched 
from the sockets to be carried away by greedy violators 
of the dead. It was on some such occasion that one of 
these thieves secreted in a hole in the wall of the tomb 
the desiccated arm of Zer's queen, still bearing under 
the close wrappings its splendid royal bracelets. Per- 
haps slain in some brawl, the robber, fortunately for 
us, never returned to recover his plunder, and it was 
found there and brought to Petrie intact by his well- 
trained workmen in 1902. 



PAET II 
THE OLD KINGDOM 



IV 

EARLY RELIGION 

49. There is no force in the life of ancient man the 
influence of which so pervades all his activities as does 
that of the religious faculty. Its fancies explain for him 
the world about him, its fears are his hourly master, 
its hopes his constant Mentor, its feasts are his calendar, 
and its outward usages are to a large extent the educa- 
tion and the motive toward the gradual evolution of 
art, literature and science. As among all other early 
peoples, it was in his surroundings that the Egyptian 
saw his gods. The trees and springs, the stones and 
hill-tops, the birds and beasts were creatures like him- 
self, or possessed of strange and uncanny powers of 
which he was not master. Among this host of spirits 
animating everything around him some were his 
friends, ready to be propitiated and to lend him their 
aid and protection; while others with craft and cunning 
lowered about his pathway, awaiting an opportunity to 
strike him with disease and pestilence, and there was no 
misfortune in the course of nature but found explana- 
tion in his mind as coming from one of these evil beings 
about him. Such spirits as these were local, each 
known only to the dwellers in a given locality, and the 
efforts to serve and propitiate them were of the hum- 
blest and most primitive character. Of such worship 
we know little or nothing in the Old Kingdom, but 

55 



56 THE OLD KINGDOM 

during the Empire we shall be able to gain fleeting 
glimpses into this naive and long-forgotten world. But 
the Egyptian peopled not merely the local circle about 
him with such spirits; the sky above him and earth 
beneath his feet were equally before him for explana- 
tion. Long ages of confinement to his elongated valley, 
with its monotonous, even if sometimes grand scenery, 
had imposed a limited range upon his imagination; 
neither had he the qualities of mind which could be 
stirred by the world of nature to such exquisite fancies 
as those with which the natural beauties of Hellas in- 
spired the imagination of the Greeks. In the remote 
ages of that earliest civilization, which we have briefly 
surveyed in the preceding chapter, the shepherds and 
plowmen of the Nile valley saw in the heavens a vast 
cow, w T hich stood athwart the vault, with head in the 
west, the earth lying between fore and hind feet, w T hile 
the belly of the animal, studded with stars, was the 
arch of heaven. The people of another locality, how- 
ever, fancied they could discern a colossal female figure 
standing with feet in the east and bending over the earth, 
till she supported herself upon her arms in the far west. 
To others the sky was a sea, supported high above the 
earth with a pillar at each of its four corners. As 
these fancies gained more than local credence and came 
into contact with each other, they mingled in inextrica- 
ble confusion. The sun was born every morning as a 
calf or as a child, according to the explanation of the 
heavens, as a cow or a woman, and he sailed across the 
sky in a celestial barque, to arrive in the west and de- 
scend as an old man tottering into the grave. Again 
the lofty flight of the hawk, which seemed a very com- 
rade of the sun, led them to believe that the sun himself 
must be such a hawk taking his daily flight across the 



EARLY RELIGION 57 

heavens, and the sun-disk, wearing the outspread wings 
of the hawk, became the commonest symbol of their 
religion. 

50. The earth, or as they knew it, their elongated 
valley was, to their primitive fancy, a man lying prone, 
upon whose back the vegetation grew, the beasts moved 
and man lived. If the sky was a sea upon which the 
sun and the heavenly lights sailed westward every day, 
there must then be a waterway by which they -could 
return; so there was beneath the earth another Nile, 
flowing through a long dark passage with successive 
caverns, through which the celestial barque took its 
way at night, to appear again in the east at early morn- 
ing. This subterranean stream was connected with the 
Nile at the first cataract, and thence issued from two 
caverns, the waters of their life-giving river. It will 
be seen that for the people among whom this myth 
arose the world ended at the first cataract; all that 
they knew beyond was a vast sea. This was also con- 
nected with the Nile in the south, and the river returned 
to it in the north, for this sea, which they called the 
"Great Circle" (BAR II, 661), surrounded their earth. 
It is the idea inherited by the Greeks, who called the 
sea Okeanos, or Ocean. In the beginning only this 
ocean existed, upon which there had then appeared an 
egg, or as some said a flower, out of which issued the 
sun-god. From himself he begat four children, Shu and 
Tefnut, Keb and Nut. All these, with their father, 
lay upon the primeval ocean, when Shu and Tefnut, 
who represent the atmosphere, thrust themselves be- 
tween Keb and Nut. They planted their feet upon 
Keb and raised Nut on high, so that Keb became the 
earth and Nut the heavens. Keb and Nut were the 
iather and mother of the four divinities, Osiris and 



58 THE OLD KINGDOM 

Isis, Set and Nephthys; together they formed with 
their primeval father the sun-god, Re or Atum, a circle 
of nine deities, the "ennead" of which each temple 
later possessed a local form. This correlation of the 
primitive divinities as father, mother and son, strongly 
influenced the theology of later times until each temple 
possessed an artificially created triad, of purely second- 
ary origin, upon which an "ennead" was then built up. 
Other local versions of this story of the world's origin 
also circulated. One of them represents Re as ruling 
the earth for a time as king over men (c/., p. 112) who 
plotted against him, so that he sent a goddess, Hathor, 
to slay them, but finally repented and by a ruse suc- 
ceeded in diverting the goddess from the total exter- 
mination of the human race, after she had destroyed 
them in part. The cow of the sky then raised Re upon 
her back that he might forsake the ungrateful earth 
and dwell in heaven. 

51. Besides these gods of the earth, the air and the 
heavens, there were also those who had as their domain 
the nether world, the gloomy passage, along which the 
subterranean stream carried the sun from west to east. 
Here, according to a very early belief, dwelt the dead, 
whose king was Osiris. He had succeeded the sun-god, 
Re, as king on earth, aided in his government by his 
faithful sister-wife, Isis. A benefactor of men, and 
beloved as a righteous ruler, he was nevertheless 
craftily misled and slain by his brother Set. When, 
after great tribulation, Isis had gained possession of 
her lord's body, she was assisted in preparing it for 
burial by one of the old gods of the nether world, An- 
ubis, the jackal-god, who thereafter became the god 
of embalmment. So powerful were the charms now 
uttered by Isis over the body of her dead husband that 



EARLY RELIGION 59 

it was reanimated, and regained the use of its limbs; 
and although it was impossible for the departed god 
to resume his earthly life, he passed down in tri- 
umph as a living king, to become lord of the nether 
world. Isis later gave birth to a son, Horus, whom she 
secretly reared among the marshy fastnesses of the 
Delta as the avenger of his father. Grown to man- 
hood, the youth pursued Set, and in the ensuing awful 
battle, which raged from end to end of the land, both 
were fearfully mutilated. But Set was defeated, and 
Horus triumphantly assumed the earthly throne of his 
father. Thereupon Set entered the tribunal of the gods, 
and charged that the birth of Horus was not without 
stain, and that his claim to the throne was not valid. 
Defended by Thoth, the god of letters, Horus was 
vindicated and declared "true in speech," or "tri- 
umphant." According to another version it was Osiris 
himself who was thus vindicated. 

52. Not all the gods who appear in these tales and 
fancies became more than mythological figures. Many 
of them continued merely in this role, without temple or 
form of worship; they had but a folk-lore or finally a 
theological existence. Others became the great gods 
of Egypt. In a land where a clear sky prevailed and 
rain was rarely seen the incessant splendour of the sun 
was an insistent fact, which gave him the highest place 
in the thought and daily life of the people. His wor- 
ship was almost universal, but the chief centre of his 
cult was at On, the Delta city, which the Greeks called 
Heliopolis. Here he was known as Re, which was 
the solar orb itself; or as Atum, the name of the de- 
crepit sun, as an old man tottering down the west; 
again his name Khepri, written with a beetle in hiero- 
glyphics, designated him in the youthful vigour of his 



60 THE OLD KINGDOM 

rising. He had two barques with which he sailed 
across the heavens, one for the morning and the other 
for the afternoon, and when in this barque he entered 
the nether world at evening to return to the east he 
brought light and joy to its disembodied denizens. 
The symbol of his presence in the temple at Heliopolis 
was an obelisk, while at Edfu, on the upper river, which 
was also an old centre of his worship, he appeared as a 
hawk, under the name Horus. 

53. The Moon, the measurer of time, furnished the 
god of reckoning, letters, and wisdom, Thoth, whose chief 
centre was Shmun, or Hermopolis, as the Greeks who 
identified him with Hermes, called the place. He was 
identified with the Ibis. The Sky, whom we have seen 
as Nut, was worshipped throughout the land, although 
Nut herself continued to play only a mythological role. 
The sky-goddess became the type of woman and of 
woman's love and joy. At the ancient shrine of Den- 
dereh she was the cow-goddess, Hathor; at Sais she 
was the joyous Neit; at Bubastis, in the form of a cat, 
she appeared as Bast; while at Memphis her genial 
aspects disappeared and she became a lioness, the 
goddess of storm and terror. The myth of Osiris, so 
human in its incidents and all its characteristics, rapidly 
induced the wide propagation of his worship, and al- 
though Isis still remained chiefly a figure in the myth, 
she became the type of wife and mother upon which 
the people loved to dwell. Horus also, although he 
really belonged originally to the sun-myth and had 
nothing to do with Osiris, was for the people the em- 
bodiment of the qualities of a good son, and in him 
they constantly saw the ulitmate triumph of the just 
cause. The immense influence of the Osiris-worship 
on the life of Egypt we shall have occasion to notice 



EARLY RELIGION 61 

further in discussing mortuary beliefs. The original 
home of Osiris was at Dedu, called by the Greeks 
Busiris, in the Delta; but Abydos, in Upper Egypt, 
early gained a reputation of peculiar sanctity, because 
the head of Osiris was buried there. He always ap- 
peared as a closely swathed figure, enthroned as a 
Pharaoh or merely a curious pillar, a fetish surviving 
from his prehistoric worship. Into the circle of nature 
divinities it is impossible to bring Ptah of Memphis, 
who was one of the early and great gods of Egypt. He 
was the patron of the artisan, the artificer and artist, 
and his High Priest was always the chief artist of the 
court. Such were the chief gods of Egypt, although 
many another important deity presided in this or that 
temple, whom it would be impossible for us to notice 
here, even with a word. 

54. The external manifestations and the symbols 
with which the Egyptian clothed these gods are of the 
simplest character and they show the primitive sim- 
plicity of the age in which these deities arose. They 
bear a staff like a Beduin native of to-day, or the god- 
desses wield a reed-stem; their diadems are of woven 
reeds or a pair of ostrich feathers, or the horns of a 
sheep. In such an age the people frequently saw the 
manifestations of their gods in the numerous animals 
with which they were surrounded, and the veneration 
of these sacred beasts survived into an age of high 
civilization, when we should have expected it to dis- 
appear. But the animal-worship, which we usually 
associate with ancient Egypt, as a cult is a late product, 
brought forward in the decline of the nation at the 
close of its history. In the periods with which we shall 
have to deal, it was unknown; the hawk, for example, 
was the sacred animal of the sun-god, and as such a 



62 THE OLD KINGDOM 

living hawk might have a place in the temple, where 
he was fed and kindly treated, as any such pet might 
be; but he was not worshipped, nor was he the object 
of an elaborate ritual as later (EHR, 25). 

55. In their elongated valley the local beliefs of the 
earliest Egyptians could not but differ greatly among 
themselves, and although, for example, there were many 
centres of sun-worship, each city possessing a sun- 
temple regarded the sun as its particular god, to the 
exclusion of all the rest; just as many a town of Italy 
at the present day would not for a moment identify its 
particular Madonna with the virgin of any other town. 
As commercial and administrative intercourse was in- 
creased by political union, these mutually contradictory 
and incompatible beliefs could not longer remain local. 
They fused into a complex of tangled myth, of which 
we have already offered some examples and shall yet 
see more. Neither did the theologizing priesthoods 
ever reduce this mass of belief into a coherent system; 
it remained as accident and circumstance brought it 
together, a chaos of contradictions. Another result of 
national life was that, as soon as a city gained political 
supremacy, its gods rose with it to the dominant place 
among the innumerable gods of the land. 

56. The temples in which the earliest Egyptian wor- 
shipped we have already had occasion to notice. He 
conceived the place as the dwelling of his god, and 
hence its arrangement probably conformed with that 
of a private house of the predynastic Egyptian. While 
wattle walls have ^iven place to stone masonry, it was 
still the house of the god. Behind a forecourt open to 
the sky rose a colonnaded hall, beyond which was a 
series of small chambers containing the furniture and 
implements for the temple services. Of the architect- 



EARLY RELIGION 63 

ure and decoration of the building we shall later have 
occasion to speak further. The centre of the chambers 
in the rear was occupied by a small room, the holy of 
holies, in which stood a shrine hewn from one block 
of granite. It contained the image of the god, a small 
figure of wood from one and a half to six feet high, 
elaborately adorned and splendid with gold, silver and 
costly stones. The service of the divinity who dwelt 
here consisted simply in furnishing him with those 
things which formed the necessities and luxuries of an 
Egyptian of wealth and rank at that time: plentiful 
food and drink, fine clothing, music and the dance. 
The source of these offerings was the income from the 
endowment of lands established by the throne, as well 
as various contributions from the royal revenues in 
grain, wine, oil, honey and the like (BAR, I, 153-167, 
213). These contributions to the comfort and happi- 
ness of the lord of the temple, while probably originally 
offered without ceremony, gradually became the occa- 
sion of an elaborate ritual which was essentially alike 
in all temples. Outside in the forecourt was the great 
altar, where the people gathered on feast days, when 
they were permitted to share the generous food offerings, 
which ordinarily were eaten by the priests and servants 
of the temple, after they had been presented to the god. 
These feasts, besides those marking times and seasons, 
were frequently commemorations of some important 
event in the story or myth of the god, and on such occa- 
sions the priests in procession brought forth the image 
in a portable shrine, having the form of a small Nile 
boat. 

57. The earliest priesthood was but an incident in 
the duties of the local noble, who was the head of the 
priests in the community; but the exalted position of 



64 THE OLD KINGDOM 

the Pharaoh, as the nation developed, made him the 
sole official servant of the gods, and there arose at the 
beginning of the nation's history a state form of re- 
ligion in which the Pharaoh played the supreme role. 
In theory, therefore, it was he alone who worshipped 
the gods; in fact, however, he was of necessity repre- 
sented in each of the many temples of the land by a 
high priest, by whom all offerings were presented "for 
the sake of the life, prosperity and health" of the 
Pharaoh. Some of these high priesthoods were of 
very ancient origin: particularly that of Heliopolis, 
whose incumbent was called "Great Seer"; while he 
of Ptah at Memphis was called "Great Chief of Arti- 
ficers." Both positions demanded two incumbents at 
once, and were usually held by men of high rank. The 
incumbents of the other high priesthoods of later origin 
all bore the simple title of "overseer or chief of priests." 
It was the duty of this man not merely to conduct the 
service and ritual of the sanctuary, but also to admin- 
ister its endowment of lands, from the income of which 
it lived, while in time of war he might even command 
the temple contingent. He was assisted by a body of 
priests, whose sacerdotal service was, with few excep- 
tions, merely incidental to their worldly occupations. 
They were laymen, who from time to time served for 
a stated period in the temple; thus in spite of the 
fiction of the Pharaoh as the sole worshipper of the 
god, the laymen were represented in its service. In 
the same way the women of the time were commonly 
priestesses of Neit or Hathor; their service consisted 
in nothing more than dancing and jingling a sistrum 
before the god on festive occasions. The state fiction 
had therefore not (juite suppressed the participation of 
the individual in the service of the temple. In har- 



EARLY RELIGION 65 

mony with the conception of the temple as the god's 
dwelling the most frequent title of the priest was 
"servant of the god." 

58. Parallel with this development of a state religion 
with its elaborate equipment, the evolution of the pro- 
vision for the dead had kept even pace. In no other 
land, ancient or modern, has there ever been such 
attention to the equipment of the dead for their eternal 
sojourn in the hereafter. The beliefs which finally led 
the Egyptian to the devotion of so much of his wealth 
and time, his skill and energy to the erection and 
equipment of the "eternal house" are the oldest con- 
ceptions of a real life hereafter of which we know. He 
believed that the body was animated by a vital force, 
which he pictured as a counterpart of the body, which 
came into the world with it, passed through life in its 
company, and accompanied it into the next world. 
This he called a "ka," and it is often spoken of in 
modern treatises as a "double," though this designa- 
tion describes the form of the ka as represented on the 
monuments rather than its real nature. Besides the 
ka every person possessed also a soul, which he con- 
ceived in the form of a bird flitting about among the 
trees; though it might assume the outward semblance 
of a flower, the lotus, a serpent, a crocodile sojourning 
in the river, or of many other things. Even further 
elements of personality seemed to them present, like 
the shadow possessed by every one, but the relations 
of all these to each other were very vague and confused 
in the mind of the Egyptian; just as the average 
Christian of a generation ago, who accepted the doctrine 
of body, soul and spirit, would have been unable to 
give any lucid explanation of their interrelations. 

59. Like the varying explanations of the heavens and 



66 THE OLD KINGDOM 

the world there were many once probably local notions 
of the place to which the dead journeyed; but these 
beliefs, although mutually irreconcilable, continued to 
enjoy general acceptance, and no one was troubled by 
their incompatibility, even if it ever occurred to them. 
There was a world of the dead in the west, where the 
sun-god descended into his grave every night, so that 
"westerners" was for the Egyptian a term for the de- 
parted ; and wherever possible the cemetery was located 
on the margin of the western desert. There was also 
the nether world where the departed lived awaiting the 
return of the solar barque every evening, that they might 
bathe in the radiance of the sun-god, and, seizing the 
bow-rope of his craft, draw him with rejoicing through 
the long caverns of their dark abode. In the splendour 
of the nightly heavens the Nile-dweller also saw the 
host of those who had preceded him; thither they had 
flown as birds, rising above all foes of the air, and 
received by Re as the companions of his celestial barque, 
they now swept across the sky as eternal stars. Still 
more commonly the Egyptian told of a field in the 
northeast of the heavens, which he called the "field of 
food," or the "field of Yaru," the lentil field, where the 
grain grew taller than any ever seen on the banks of 
the Nile, and the departed dwelt in security and plenty. 
Besides the bounty of the soil he received, too, from the 
earthly offerings presented in the temple of his god: 
bread and beer and fine linen. It was not every one 
who succeeded in reaching this field of the blessed ; for 
it was surrounded by water. Sometimes the departed 
might nduce the hawk or the ibis to bear him across 
on their pinions; again friendly spirits, the four sons of 
Horus, brought him a craft upon which he might float 
over; sometimes the sun-god bore him across in his 



EARLY RELIGION 67 

barque; but by far the majority depended upon the 
services of a ferryman called "Turnface" or "Look- 
behind," because his face was ever turned to the rear 
in poling his craft. He will not receive all into his 
boat, but only him of whom it is said, "there is no evil 
which he has done," or "the just who hath no boat," 
or him who is "righteous before heaven and earth and 
before the isle" (Pyramid of Pepi I, 400; Meniere 570, 
AZ, XXXI, 76-77), where lies the happy field to which 
they go. These are the earliest traces in the history 
of man of an ethical test at the close of life, making the 
life hereafter dependent upon the character of the life 
lived on earth. It was at this time, however, prevail- 
ingly ceremonial rather than moral purity which se- 
cured the waiting soul passage across the waters. (But 
see BAR, I, 252, 279.) 

60. Into these early beliefs, with which Osiris origi- 
nally had nothing to do, the myth which told of his death 
and departure into the nether world, now entered to 
become the dominating element in Egyptian mortuary 
belief. He had become the "first of those in the west" 
and "king of the glorified"; eveiy soul that suffered 
the fate of Osiris might also experience his restoration 
to life; might indeed become an Osiris. Believing thus 
that all might share the goodly destiny of Osiris, they 
contemplated death without dismay, for they said of 
the dead, "They depart not as those who are dead, 
but they depart as those who are living" (EHR, 96-99). 
Here there entered, as a salutary influence, also the in- 
cident of the triumphant vindication of Osiris when 
accused; for there is a hint of a similar moral justifica- 
tion for all, which, as an ethical influence, we shall yet 
see, was the most fruitful germ in Egyptian religion 
(BAR, I, 331, 253, 330, 338, 357). 



I s THE OLD KINGDOM 

61. These views are chiefly found in the oldest mor- 
tuarv literature of Egypt which we possess, a series of 
texts supposed to be effective in securing for the de- 
ceased the enjoyment of a happy life, and especially the 
blessed future enjoyed by Osiris. They w T ere engraved 
upon the passages of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty 
pyramids, where they have been preserved in large 
numbers, and it is largely from them that the above 
sketch of the early Egyptian's notions of the hereafter 
has been taken (see EHR). From the place in which 
they are found they are usually called the "Pyramid 
Texts." Many of these texts grew up in the pre- 
dynastic age and some have therefore been altered to 
accommodate them to the Osiris faith, with which they 
originally had no connection — a process which has of 
course resulted in inextricable confusion of originally 
differing mortuary beliefs. 

62. So insistent a belief or set of beliefs in a life 
beyond the grave necessarily brought with it a mass of 
mortuary usages with which in the earliest period of 
Egypt's career we have already gained some acquaint- 
ance. It is evident that however persistently the 
Egyptian transferred the life of the departed to some 
distant region, far from the tomb where the body lay, 
he was never able to detach the future life entirely from 
the body. It is evident that he could conceive of no 
survival of the dead without it. Gradually he had 
developed a more and more pretentious and a safer 
repository for his dead, until, as we have seen, it had 
become a vast and massive structure of stone. In all 
the world no such colossal tombs as the pyramids are 
to be found; while the tombs of the nobles grouped 
about have in the Old Kingdom become immense 
masonry structures, which, but a few centuries before, 



EARLY RELIGION 69 

a king would have been proud to own. Such a tomb 
as that of Pepi I's vizier in the Sixth Dynasty contained 
no less than thirty-one rooms. The superstructure of 
such a tomb was a massive, flat-topped, rectangular 
oblong of masonry, the sides of which slanted inward 
at an angle of, roughly, seventy-five degrees. It was, 
with the exception of its room or rooms, solid through- 
out, reminding the modern natives of the "mastaba," 
the terrace, area or bench on which they squat before 
their houses and shops. Such a tomb is therefore 
commonly termed a "mastaba," The simplest of such 
mastabas has no rooms within, and only a false door 
in the east side, by which the dead, dwelling in the 
west, that is, behind this door, might enter again the 
world of the living. This false door was finally elab- 
orated into a kind of chapel-chamber in the mass of 
the masonry, the false door now being placed in the 
west wall of the chamber. The inner walls of this 
chapel bore scenes carved in relief, depicting the ser- 
vants and slaves of the deceased at their daily tasks on 
his estate, in field and workshop, producing all those 
things which were necessary for their lord's welfare in 
the hereafter, while here and there his towering figure 
appeared superintending and inspecting their labours 
as he had done before he " departed into the West." It 
is these scenes which are the source of our knowledge 
of the life and customs of the time. Far below the 
massive mastaba was a burial chamber in the native 
rock reached by a shaft which passed down through 
the superstructure of masonry. On the day of burial 
the body, now duly embalmed, was subjected to elab- 
orate ceremonies re-enacting occurrences in the resur- 
rection of Osiris. It was especially necessary by potent 
charms to open the mouth and ears of the deceased 



70 THE OLD KINGDOM 

that he might speak and hear in the hereafter. The 
mummy was then lowered down the shaft and laid upon 
its left side in a fine rectangular cedar coffin, which 
again was deposited in a massive sarcophagus of granite 
or limestone. Food and drink were left with it, be- 
sides some few toilet articles, a magic wand and a num- 
ber of amulets for protection against the enemies of the 
dead, especially serpents. The number of serpent- 
charms in the Pyramid Texts, intended to render these 
foes harmless, is very large. The deep shaft leading 
to the burial chamber w T as then filled to the top w T ith 
sand and gravel, and the friends of the dead now left 
him to the life in the hereafter, which w T e have pictured. 
63. Yet their duty toward their departed friend had 
not yet lapsed. In a tiny chamber beside the chapel 
they masoned up a portrait statue of the deceased, 
sometimes cutting small channels, which connected the 
two rooms, the chapel and the statue-chamber, or 
"serdab," as the modern natives call it. As the statue 
was an exact reproduction of the deceased's body, his 
ka might therefore attach itself to this counterfeit, and 
through the connecting channels enjoy the food and 
drink placed for it in the chapel. The offerings to the 
dead, originally only a small loaf in a bowl, placed by 
a son, or wife, or brother on a reed mat at the grave, 
have now become as elaborate as the daily cuisine once 
enjoyed by the lord of the tomb before he forsook his 
earthly house. But this labour of love, or sometimes 
of fear, has now devolved upon a large personnel, at- 
tached to the tomb, some of whom, as its priests, con- 
stantly maintained its ritual. Very specific contracts 
were made with these persons, requiting them for their 
services with a fixed income drawn from endowments 
legally established and recorded for this purpose by 



EARLY RELIGION 71 

the noble himself, in anticipation of his death. The 
tomb of Prince Nekure, son of King Khafre of the 
Fourth Dynasty, was endowed with the revenues from 
twelve towns, and as many as eight priests of such a 
tomb were required for its service (BAR, I, 200-209, 
231-235, 191, 226-227, 379; EHR, 123). 

Such endowments and the service thus maintained 
were intended to be permanent, but in the course of a 
few generations the accumulated burden was intolera- 
ble, and ancestors of a century before, with rare excep- 
tions, were necessarily neglected or transferred in order 
to maintain those whose claims were stronger and 
more recent (BAR, I, 173, 1. 5; 241). It had now 
become so customary for the king to assist his favourite 
lords and nobles in this way that we find a frequent 
mortuary prayer beginning "An offering which the king 
gives," and as long as the number of those whose tombs 
were thus maintained was limited to the noble and 
official circle around the king, such royal largesses 
to the dead were quite possible. But in later times, 
when the mortuary practices of the noble class had 
spread to the masses, they also employed the same 
prayer, although it is impossible that the royal bounty 
could have been so extended. Thus this prayer is to- 
day the most frequent formula to be found on the 
Egyptian monuments, occurring thousands of times on 
the tombs or tombstones of people who had no prospect 
of enjoying such royal distinction; and in the same 
tomb it is always repeated over and over again. In 
the same way the king also assisted his favourites in 
the erection of their tombs, and the noble often records 
the fact with pride (BAR, I, 204, 207, 213-227, 242- 
249, 370, 210-212, 237-240, 274-277, 308). 

64. If the tomb of the noble had now become an 



72 THE OLD KINGDOM 

endowed institution, we have seen that that of the king 
was already such in the First Dynasty. In the Third 
Dynasty, at least, the Pharaoh was not satisfied with 
one tomb, but in his double capacity as king of the 
Two Lands he erected two, just as the palace was 
double for the same reason. We find the monarch's 
tomb now far surpassing that of the noble in its extent 
and magnificence. The mortuary service of the Pha- 
raoh's lords might be conducted in the chapel in the 
east side of the mastaba; but that of the Pharaoh 
himself now required a separate building, a splendid 
mortuary temple on the east side of the pyramid. A 
richly endowed priesthood was here employed to main- 
tain its ritual and to furnish the food, drink and clothing 
of the departed king. Its large personnel demanded 
many outbuildings, and the whole group of pyramid, 
temple and accessories was surrounded by a wall. All 
this was on the edge of the plateau overlooking the 
valley, in which, below the pyramid, there now grew 
up a walled town. Leading up from the town to the 
pyramid enclosure was a massive causeway of stone 
which terminated at the lower or townward end in a 
large and stately structure of granite or limestone, some- 
times with floors of alabaster, the whole forming a 
superb portal, a worthy entrance to so impressive a 
tomb. Through this portal passed the white-robed 
procession on feast days, moving from the town up the 
long white causeway to the temple, above which rose 
the mighty mass of the pyramid. The populace in the 
city below probably never gained access to the pyramid 
enclosure. Over the town wall, through the waving 
green of the palms, they saw the gleaming white 
pyramid, where lay the god who had once ruled over 
them; while beside it rose slowly year by year another 



EARLY RELIGION 73 

mountain of stone, gradually assuming pyramid form, 
and there would some time rest his divine son, of whose 
splendour they had now and then on feast days caught 
a fleeting glimpse. While the proper burial of the 
Pharaoh and his nobles had now become a matter 
seriously affecting the economic conditions of the state, 
such elaborate mortuary equipment was still confined 
to a small class, and the common people continued to 
lay away their dead without any attempt at embalm- 
ment in the pit of their prehistoric ancestors on the 
margin of the western desert. 



THE OLD KINGDOM: GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY. 
INDUSTRY AND ART 

At the dawn of the Old Kingdom the kingship 
had attained a prestige and an exalted power, demand- 
ing the deepest reverence of the subject whether high 
or low. Indeed the king was now officially a god, and 
one of the most frequent titles was the "Good God"; 
such was the respect due him that there was reluctance 
to refer to him by name. The courtier might designate 
him impersonally as "one," and "to let one know" 
becomes the official phrase for "report to the king." 
His government and ultimately the monarch personally 
were called the "Great House," in Egyptian Per-o, a 
term which has descended to us through the Hebrews 
as "Pharaoh." 'When he died he was received into 
the circle of the gods, to be worshipped like them ever 
after in the temple before the vast pyramid in which 
he slept. 

66. Court customs had gradually developed into an 
<lal>orate official etiquette, for the punctilious observ- 
ance of which, already in this distant age, a host of 
gorgeous marshals and court chamberlains were in 
constant attendance at the palace. There had thus 
grown up a palace life, not unlike that of modern times 
in the East, a life into which we gain obscure glimpses 
in the numerous titles which the court lords of the time, 

74 



GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY 75 

with ostentatious pride, have displayed on the walls of 
their tombs. Every need of the royal person was repre- 
sented by some palace lord, whose duty it was to supply 
it. There were many ranks, and the privileges of each, 
with all possible niceties of precedence, were strictly 
observed and enforced by the court marshals at all 
state levees and royal audiences. The king's favourite 
wife became the official queen, whose eldest son usu- 
ally received the appointment as crown prince to suc- 
ceed his father. But as at all Oriental courts, there 
was also a royal harem with numerous inmates. Many 
sons usually surrounded the monarch, and the vast 
revenues of the palace were liberally distributed among 
them. A son of King Khafre in the Fourth Dynasty 
left an estate of fourteen towns, besides a town house 
and two estates at the royal residence, the pyramid 
city. Besides these, the endowment of his tomb com- 
prised twelve towns more (BAR, I, 190-199). But 
these princes assisted in their father's government, and 
did not live a life of indolence and luxury. We shall 
find them occupying some of the most arduous posts in 
the sendee of the state. 

67. However exalted may have been the official posi- 
tion of the Pharaoh as the sublime god at the head of 
the state, he nevertheless maintained close personal 
relations with the more prominent nobles of the realm. 
As a prince he had been educated with a group of 
youths from the families of these nobles, and together 
they had been instructed in such manly art as swim- 
ming. The friendships and the intimacies thus formed 
in youth must have been a powerful influence in the 
later life of the monarch. We see the Pharaoh giving 
his daughter in marriage to one of these youths with 
whom he had been educated, and the severe decorum 



76 THE OLD KINGDOM 

of the court was violated in behalf of this favourite, 
who was not permitted on formal occasions to kiss the 
dust before the Pharaoh, but enjoyed the unprecedented 
privilege of kissing the royal foot. On the part of his 
intimates such ceremonial was purely a matter of 
official etiquette; in private the monarch did not hesi- 
tate to recline familiarly in complete relaxation beside 
one of his favourites, while the attending slaves anointed 
them both. The daughter of such a noble might be- 
come the official queen and mother of the next king. 
We see the king displaying the greatest solicitude and 
sorrow at the sudden sickness and death of his vizier. 
It is evident that the most powerful lords of the king- 
dom were thus bound to the person of the Pharaoh by 
close personal ties of blood and friendship. These re- 
lations were carefully fostered by the monarch, and in 
the Fourth and early Fifth Dynasty there are aspects 
of this ancient state in which its inner circle at least 
reminds one of a great family, so that, as we have ob- 
served, the king assisted all its members in the building 
and equipment of their tombs, and showed the greatest 
solicitude for their welfare, both here and in the here- 
after (BAR, I, 256: 254 ~.\ 260, 270, 344, 242-249). 

68. At the head of government there was theoretically 
none to question the Pharaoh's power. In actual fact 
he was as subject to the demands of policy toward this 
or that class, powerful family, clique or individual, or 
toward the harem, as are his successors in the Oriental 
despotisms of the present day. These forces, which 
more or less modified his daily acts, we can follow at 
this distant day only as we see the state slowly moulded 
in its larger outlines by the impact of generation after 
generation of such influences from the Pharaoh's en- 
vironment. In spite of the luxury evident in the organ- 



GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY 77 

ization of his court, the Pharaoh did not live the life 
of a luxurious despot, such as we frequently find among 
the Mamelukes of Moslem Egypt. In the Fourth 
Dynasty, at least, he had as prince already seen arduous 
service in the superintendence of quarrying and mining 
operations, or he had served his father as vizier or 
prime minister, gaining invaluable experience in gov- 
ernment before his succession to the throne. He was 
thus an educated and enlightened monarch, able to 
read and write, and not infrequently taking his pen in 
hand personally to indite a letter of thanks and appre- 
ciation to some deserving officer in his government 
(BAR, I, 268-270, 271). He constantly received his 
ministers and engineers to discuss the needs of the 
country, especially in the conservation of the water 
supply and the development of the system of irrigation. 
He read many a weary roll of state papers, or turned 
from these to dictate dispatches to his commanders in 
Sinai, Nubia and Punt, along the southern Red Sea. 
The briefs of litigating heirs reached his hands and were 
probably not always a matter of mere routine to be 
read by secretaries. When such business of the royal 
offices had been settled the monarch rode out in his 
palanquin, accompanied by his vizier and attendants, 
to inspect his buildings and public works, and his hand 
was everywhere felt in all the important affairs of the 
nation. 

69. The situation of the royal residence was largely 
determined by the pyramid which the king was build- 
ing. As we have remarked, the palace and the town 
formed by the court and all that was attached to it 
probably lay in the valley below the margin of the 
western desert plateau on which the pyramid rose. 
From dynasty to dynasty, or sometimes from reign to 



7 s THE OLD KINGDOM 

reign, it followed the pyramid, the light construction 
of the palaces and villas not interfering seriously with 
such mobility. After the Third Dynasty the residence 
was always in the vicinity of later Memphis. The 
palace itself was double, or at least it possessed two 
gates in its front, named after, and corresponding to 
the two ancient kingdoms, of which it was now the seat 
of government (BAR, I, 148). Throughout Egyptian 
history the facade of the palace was therefore called the 
"double front," and in writing the word "palace" the 
scribe frequently placed the sign of two houses after it. 
The royal office and the sub-departments of govern- 
ment were also termed "double;" but these titles 
doubtless no longer corresponded to existing double 
organizations; they have become a persistent fiction 
surviving from the first two dynasties. Adjoining the 
palace was a huge court, connected w r ith which were 
the "halls" or offices of the central government. The 
entire complex of palace and adjoining offices was 
known as the "Great House," which was thus the 
centre of administration as well as the dwelling of the 
royal household. Here was focussed the entire system 
of government, which ramified throughout the country. 
70. For purposes of local government Upper Egypt 
was divided into some twenty administrative districts, 
and later we find as many more in the Delta. These 
"nomes" were presumably the early principalities from 
which the local princes who ruled them in prehistoric 
days had long disappeared. At the head of such a 
district or nome there was in the Fourth and Fifth 
1 )y nasties an official appointed by the crown, and known 
as " First under the King." Besides his administrative 
function as " local governor" of the nome, he also served 
in a judicial capacity, and therefore bore also the title 



GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY 79 

of "judge." In Upper Egypt these "local governors" 
were also sometimes styled "Magnates of the Southern 
Ten," as if there were a group among them enjoying 
higher rank and forming a college or council of ten. 
While we are not so well informed regarding the gov- 
ernment of the North, the system there was evidently 
very similar, although there were perhaps fewer local 
governors. Within the nome which he administered 
the "local governor" had under his control a miniature 
state, an administrative unit with all the organs of 
government: a treasury, a court of justice, a land- 
office, a service for the conservation of the dykes and 
canals, a body of militia, a magazine for their equip- 
ment; and in these offices a host of scribes and record- 
ers, with an ever growing mass of archives and local 
records. The chief administrative bond which co- 
ordinated and centralized these nomes was the organ- 
ization of the treasury, by the operation of which there 
annually converged upon the magazines of the central 
government the grain, cattle, poultry and industrial 
products, which in an age without coinage, were col- 
lected as taxes by the local governors. The local 
registration of land, or the land-office, the irrigation 
serivce, the judicial administration, and other adminis- 
trative functions were also centralized at the Great 
House; but it was the treasury which formed the most 
tangible bond between the palace and the nomes. 
Over the entire fiscal administration there was a " Chief 
Treasurer," residing of course at the court, assisted by 
two "treasurers of the god" (i. e., of the king), having 
charge of resources from mines and quarries for the 
great public works. 

71. As the reader may have already inferred, the 
judicial functions of the local governors were merely 



80 THE OLD KINGDOM 

incidental to their administrative labours. There was 
therefore no clearly defined class of professional judges, 
but the administrative officials were learned in the law 
and assumed judicial duties. Like the treasury, the 
judicial administration also converged in one person, 
for the local judges were organized into six courts and 
these in turn were under a chief justice of the whole 
realm. Many of the judges bore the additional pred- 
icate "attached to Xekhen" (Hieraconpolis), an an- 
cient title descended from the days when Xekhen was 
the royal residence of the Southern Kingdom. There 
was a body of highly elaborated law, which has un- 
fortunately perished entirely. The local governors 
boast of their fairness and justice in deciding cases, 
often stating in their tombs: "Never did I judge two 
brothers in such a way that a son was deprived of his 
paternal possession" (BAR, I, 331, 357). Even a royal 
intrigante conspiring in the harem is not summarily put 
to death, but is given legal trial (BAR, I, 307, 310). 
The system of submitting all cases to the court in the 
form of written briefs, a method so praised by Diodorus 
(I, 75 /.), seems to have existed already in this remote 
age, and the Berlin Museum possesses such a legal 
document pertaining to litigation between an heir and 
an executor. It is the oldest legal document in exist- 
ence and contains an appeal tp the king, which, under 
circumstances not vet clear to us, was passible (PKM, 
82/). 

72. The immediate head of the entire organization of 
government was the Pharaoh's prime minister, or as 
he is more commonly called in the East, the vizier. At 
tin- same time he also regularly served as chief justice; 
he was thus the most powerful man in the kingdom, 
next to the monarch himself, and for that reason the 



GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY 81 

office was held by the crown prince in the Fourth 
Dynasty. His " hall " or office served as the archives of 
the government, and he was the chief archivist of the 
state. The state records were called "king's writings." 
Here all lands were registered, and all local archives 
centralized and coordinated; here wills were recorded, 
and when executed the resulting new titles were issued. 
Over the vast army of scribes and officials who trans- 
acted the business of the Great House the vizier was 
supreme. When we add, that besides some minor 
offices, he was also often the Pharaoh's chief architect, 
or as the Egyptian said, "Chief of all Works of the 
King," we shall understand that this great minister 
was the busiest man in the kingdom. All powerful as 
he was, whose name might be followed by the royal 
salutation, "Life, Prosperity, Health," the people ap- 
pealed to him in his judicial capacity as to one who 
could right every wrong, and the office was traditionally 
the most popular in the long list of the Pharaoh's ser- 
vants. The greatest sages and authors of proverbial 
wisdom famous in later days, like Imhotep, Kegemne 
and Ptah-hotep, had been viziers in the Old Kingdom 
(BAR, I, 268 ff.; 273; 175 11. 14-16; 190-199; 213-217, 
231 J.; 173). 

73. Such was the organization of this remarkable 
state, as we are able to discern it during the first two 
or three centuries of the Old Kingdom. In the thirtieth 
century before Christ it had reached an elaborate devel- 
opment of state functions under local officials, such as 
was not found in Europe until far down in the history 
of the Roman Empire. It was, to sum up briefly, a 
closely centralized organization of local official bodies, 
each a centre for all the organs of the local government, 
which in each nome were focussed in the local governor 



82 THE OLD KINGDOM 

before converging upon the palace. It was the main- 
tenance of the nomes each as a separate unit of govern- 
ment, and the interposition of the governor at its head 
between the Pharaoh and the nome, which rendered 
the system dangerous. These little states within the 
state might too easily become independent centres of 
political power. How this process actually took place 
we shall be able to observe as we follow the career of 
the Old Kingdom in the next chapter. 

74. Such a process was rendered the more easy be- 
cause the government did not maintain any uniform or 
compact military organization. Each nome possessed 
its militia, commanded by the civil officials, who were 
not necessarily trained soldiers; there was thus no 
class of exclusively military officers. The temple es- 
tates likewise maintained a body of such troops. They 
were for the most part employed in mining and quarry- 
ing expeditions, supplying the hosts necessary for the 
transportation of the enormous blocks often demanded 
by the architects. In such work they were under the 
command of the " treasurer of the god." In case of 
serious war, as there was no standing army, this militia 
from all the nomes and temple estates, besides auxil- 
iaries levied among the Nubian tribes, were brought 
together as quickly as possible, and the command of the 
motley host, without any permanent organization, was 
entrusted by the monarch to some able official. As 
the local governors commanded the militia of the nomes, 
they held the sources of the Pharaoh's dubious military 
strength in their own hands. 

75. The land which was thus administered must to 
a large extent have belonged to the crown. Under the 
oversight of the local governors' subordinates it was 
worked and made profitable by slaves or serfs, who 



GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY 83 

formed the bulk of the population. They belonged to 
the ground and were bequeathed with it (BAR, I, 171). 
We have no means of determining how large this popula- 
tion was, although, as we have before stated, it had 
reached the sum of seven million by Roman times. 
The descendants of the numerous progeny of older 
kings, with possible remnants of the prehistoric landed 
nobility, had created also a class of land-holding nobles, 
whose great estates must have formed a not incon- 
siderable fraction of the available lands of the kingdom. 
Such lords did not necessarily enter upon an official 
career or participate in the administration. But the 
nobles and the peasant serfs, as the highest and the 
lowest, were not the only classes of society. There was 
a free middle class, in whose hands the arts and indus- 
tries had reached such a high degree of excellence; but 
of these people we know almost nothing. They did 
not build imperishable tombs, such as have furnished 
us with all that we know of the nobles of the time; and 
their business documents, written on papyrus, have all 
perished, in spite of the enormous mass of such ma- 
terials which must have once existed. Later condi- 
tions would indicate that there undoubtedly was a class 
of industrial merchants in the Old Kingdom who pro- 
duced and sold their own wares. That there were free 
landholders not belonging to the ranks of the nobles is 
also highly probable. 

76. The social unit was as in later human history, 
the family. A man possessed but one legal wife, who 
was the mother of his heirs. As constantly depicted 
on the monuments, she was in every respect his equal, 
was always treated with the greatest consideration, and 
participated in the pleasures of her husband and her 
children. Such relations had often existed from the 



84 THE OLD KINGDOM 

earliest childhood of the pair; for it was customary in 
all ranks of society for a youth to marry his sister. 
Besides the legitimate wife, the head of his household, 
the man of wealth possessed also a harem, the inmates 
of which maintained no legal claim upon their lord. 
The children of the time show the greatest respect for 
their parents, and it was the duty of even- son to main- 
tain the tomb of his father. The respect and affection 
of one's parents and family were highly valued, and we 
often find in the tombs the statement, "I was one be- 
loved of his father, praised of his mother, whom his 
brothers and sisters loved" (BAR, I, 357). As among 
many other peoples, the natural line of inheritance was 
through the eldest daughter, though a will might dis- 
regard this. The closest ties of blood were through the 
mother, and a man's natural protector, even in prefer- 
ence to his own father, was the father of his mother. 
The debt of a son to the mother who bore and nour- 
ished him, cherished and cared for him while he was 
being educated, is dwelt upon with emphasis by the 
wise men of the time. While there was probably a 
loose form of marriage which might be easily dissolved, 
a form presumably due to the instability of fortune 
among the slaves and the poorer class, yet immorality 
was strongly condemned by the best sentiment. The 
wise man warns the youth, " Beware of a woman from 
abroad, who is not known in her city. Look not upon 
her when she comes, and know her not. She is like 
the vortex of deep waters, whose whirling is unfathom- 
able. The woman, whose husband is far away, she 
writes to thee every day. If there is no witness with 
her she arises and spreads her net. O deadlv crime, if 
one hearkens!" (PB, I, 16, 13 ft.; EA, 223). To all 
youths marriage and the foundation of a household are 



GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY 85 

recommended as the only wise course. Yet there is no 
doubt that side by side with these wholesome ideals of 
the wise and virtuous, there also existed widespread and 
gross immorality. 

77. The outward conditions of the lower class were 
not such as would incline toward moral living. In the 
towns their low mud-brick, thatch-roofed houses were 
crowded into groups and masses, so huddled together 
that the walls were usually contiguous. 1 A rough stool, 
a, rude box or two, and a few crude pottery jars con- 
stituted the furniture of such a hovel. The barracks 
of the workmen were an immense succession of small 
mud-brick chambers under one roof, with open pas- 
sages between long lines of such rooms. Whole quar- 
ters for the royal levies of workmen were erected on this 
plan in the pryamid-towns, and near the pyramids. 
On the great estates the life of the poor was freer, less 
congested and promiscuous, and undoubtedly more 
stable and wholesome. 

78. The houses of the rich, the noble and official 
class were large and commodious. Methen, a great 
noble of the Third Dynasty, built a house over three 
hundred and thirty feet square (BAR, I, 173). The 
materials were wood and sun-dried brick,) and the 
construction was light and airy as suited the climate. 
There were many latticed windows, on all sides the 
walls of the living rooms were largely a mere skeleton, 
like those of many Japanese houses. Against winds 
and sandstorms they could be closed by dropping 
gaily coloured hangings. Even the palace of the king, 
though of course fortified, was of this light construction; 
hence the cities of ancient Egypt have disappeared 
entirely or left but mounds containing a few scanty 
fragments of ruined walls. Beds, chairs, stools and 



THE OLD KINGDOM 

chests of ebony, inlaid with ivory in the finest workman- 
ship, formed the chief articles of furniture. Little or 
no use was made of tables, but the rich vessels of ala- 
baster and other costly stones, of copper, or some- 
times of gold and silver, were placed upon bases and 
standards which raised them from the floor. The floors 
were covered with heavy rugs, upon which guests, es- 
pecially ladies, frequently sat, in preference to the chairs 
and stools. The food was rich and varied; we find 
that even the dead desired in the hereafter "ten differ- 
ent kinds of meat, five kinds of poultry, sixteen kinds of 
bread and cakes, six kinds of wine, four kinds of beer, 
eleven kinds of fruit, besides all sorts o: and 

many other things" ,.DG. 18-26; "A. 265). 

:ume of these ancient lords was simple 
in the extreme; it consisted merely of a white linen 
kilt, secured above the hips with a girdle or band, and 
hanging often hardly to the knees, or again in another 
style, to the calf of the leg. The head was commonly 
shaven, and two styles of wig, one short and curly, the 
other with long straight locks parted in the middle, were 
worn on all state occasions. A broad collar, often in- 
laid with costly stones, generally hung from the neck, 
but otherwise the body was bare from the waist up. 
With long staff in hand, the gentleman of the day was 
ready to receive his visitors, or to make a tour of in- 
spection about his estate. His lady and her daug: 
all appeared in costumes even more simple. They were 
clothed in a thin, close-fitting, sleeveless, white linen 
garment hanging from the breast to the ankles, and 
supported by two bands passing over the shoulders. 
The skirt, as a modern modiste would say, " lacked ful- 
ness," and there was barely freedom to walk. A long 
■ collar and necklace, and a pair of bracelets com- 



GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY 87 

pleted the lady's costume. Neither she nor her lord 
was fond of sandals, although they now and then wore 
them. While the adults thus dispensed with all un- 
necessary clothing, as we should expect in such a cli- 
mate, the children were allowed to run about without 
any clothing whatever. The peasant wore merely a 
breech-clout, which he frequently cast off when at work 
in the fields; his wife was clad in the same long close- 
fitting garment worn by the wife of the noble; but she, 
too, when engaged in heavy work, such as winnowing 
grain, cast aside all clothing. 

80. The Egyptian was passionately fond of nature 
and of outdoor life. The house of the noble was always 
surrounded by a garden, in which he loved to plant figs 
and palms and sycamores, laying out vineyards and 
arbours, and excavating before the house a pool, lined 
with masonry coping and filled with fish. A large 
body of servants and slaves were in attendance, both in 
house and garden,; a chief steward had charge of the 
entire house and estate, while an upper gardener 
directed the slaves in the care and culture of thej^arden. 
This was the noble's paradise; here he spent his leisure 
hours with his family and friends, playing at draughts, 
listening to the music of harp, pipe and lute, watching 
his women in the slow and stately dance of the time, 
while his children sported about among the trees, 
splashed in the pool, or played with ball, doll or jump- 
ing- jack. The hunt in the cool shade of the papyrus 
marshes, or out in the blazing heat of the desert equally 
attracted him in his leisure hours. In this lighter side 
of the Egyptian's life, his love of nature, his wholesome 
and sunny view of life, his never failing cheerfulness in 
spite of his constant and elaborate preparation for 
death, and especially his noticeable humour, we find 



88 THE OLD KINGDOM 

pervading characteristics of his nature, which are so 
evident in his art, as to raise it far above the sombre, 
heaviness that pervades the contemporary art of Asia. 

81. Some five centuries of uniform government, with 
centralized control of the innundation, in the vast sys- 
tem of dykes and irrigation canals, had brought the 
productivity of the nation to the highest level; for the 
economic foundation of this civilization in the Old 
Kingdom, as in all other periods of Egyptian history, 
was agriculture. It was the enormous harvests of 
wheat and barley gathered by the Egyptian from the 
inexhaustible soil of his valley which made possible the 
social and political structure which we have been 
sketching. Besides grain, the extensive vineyards and 
wide fields of succulent vegetables, which formed a part 
of even' estate, greatly augmented the agricultural re- 
sources of the land. Large herds of cattle, sheep, goats, 
droves of donkeys (for the horse was unknown), and 
vast quantities of poultry, wild fowl, the large game of 
the desert and innumerable Nile fish, added not in- 
considerably to the wealth and prosperity which the 
land was now enjoying. It was thus in field and past- 
ure that the millions of the kingdom toiled to produce 
the annual wealth by which its economic processes con- 
tinued. 

82. Other sources of wealth also occupied large 
numbers of workmen. There were granite quarries at 
the first cataract, sandstone was quarried at Silsileh, 
the finer and harder stones chiefly at Hammamat be- 
tween Coptos and the Red Sea, alabaster at Hatnub 
behind Amarna, and limestone at many places, par- 
ticularly at Ayan or Troia opposite Memphis. They 
brought from the first cataract granite blocks twenty 
or thirty feet long and fifty or sixty tons in weight. 



INDUSTRY AND ART 89 

They drilled the toughest of stone, like diorite, with 
tubular drills of copper, and the massive lids of granite 
sarcophagi were sawn with long copper saws which, 
like the drills, were reenforced by sand or emery. 
Miners and quarrymen were employed in large num- 
bers during the expeditions to Sinai, for the purpose of 
procuring copper, the green and blue malachite used 
in fine inlays, the turquoise and lapis-lazuli. The 
source of iron, which was already used for tools to a 
limited extent, is uncertain. Bronze was not yet in 
use. The smiths furnished tools of copper and iron; 
bolts, nails, hinges and mountings of all sorts for ar- 
tisans of all classes: they also wrought fine copper 
vessels for the tables of the rich, besides splendid copper 
weapons. They achieved marvels also in the realm of 
plastic art, as we have yet to see. Silver came from 
abroad, probably from Cilicia in Asia Minor; it was 
therefore even more rare and valuable than gold. The 
quartz-veins of the granite mountains along the Red 
Sea were rich in gold, and it was taken out in the Wady 
Foakhir, on the Coptos road. It was likewise mined 
largely by southern tribes and obtained in trade from 
Nubia, in the eastern deserts of which it was also found. 
Of the jewelry worn by the Pharaoh and his nobles, in 
the Old Kingdom, almost nothing has survived, but the 
reliefs in the tomb-chapels often depict the goldsmith 
at his work, and his descendants in the Middle King- 
dom have left works which show that the taste and 
cunning of the First Dynasty had developed without 
cessation in the Old Kingdom. 

83. For the other important industries the Nile valley 
furnished nearly all materials indispensable to their 
development. In spite of the ease with which good 
building stone was procured, enormous quantities of 



90 THE OLD KINGDOM 

sun-dried bricks were turned out by the brick-yards, 
as they still are at the present day, and, as we have seen, 
the masons erected whole quarters for the poor, villas 
for the rich, magazines, storehouses, forts and city walls 
of these cheap and convenient materials. In the 
forestless valley the chief trees were the date palm, the 
svcamore, tamarisk and acacia, none of which fur- 
nished good timber. Wood was therefore scarce and 
expensive, but the carpenters, joiners and cabinet- 
makers flourished nevertheless, and those in the em- 
ploy of the palace or on the estates of the nobles wrought 
wonders in the cedar, imported from Syria, and the 
ebony and ivory which came in from the south. In 
every town and on every large estate ship-building was 
constant. There were many different styles of craft 
from the heavy cargo-boat for grain and cattle, to the 
gorgeous many-oared "dahabiyeh," of the noble, with 
its huge sail. We shall find these shipwrights building 
the earliest known sea-going vessels, on the shores of 
the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. 

84. While the artistic craftsman in stone still pro- 
duced magnificent vessels, vases, jars, bowls and 
platters in alabaster, diorite, porphyry and other costly 
stones, yet his work was gradually giving way to the 
potter, whose rich blue- and green-glazed fayence ves- 
sels could not but win their way. He produced also 
vast quantities of large coarse jars for the storage of 
oils, wines, meats and other foods in the magazines of 
the nobles and the government ; while the use of smaller 
vessels among the millions of the lower classes made 
the manufacture of pottery one of the chief industries 
of the country. The pottery of the time is without 
decoration, and is hardly a work of art. Glass was 
still chiefly employed as glaze and had not yet been 



INDUSTRY AND ART 91 

developed as an independent material. In a land 
of pastures and herds the production of leather was of 
course understood. The tanners had thoroughly mas- 
tered the art of curing the hides, and produced fine 
soft skins, which they dyed in all colours, covering 
stools and chairs, beds and cushions, and furnishing gay 
canopies and baldachins. Flax was plentifully culti- 
vated, and the Pharaoh's harvest of flax was under the 
control of a noble of rank (BAR I, 172, 1. 5). The 
women of the serfs on the great estates were the spin- 
ners and weavers. Even the coarser varieties for 
general use show good quality, but surviving specimens 
of the royal linens are of such exquisite fineness that 
the ordinary eye requires a glass to distinguish them 
from silk, and the limbs of the wearer could be dis- 
cerned through the fabric. Other vegetable fibres fur- 
nished by the marshes supported a large industry in 
coarser textiles. Among these the papyrus was the 
most beautiful. Broad, light skiffs were made of it by 
binding together long bundles of these reeds; rope was 
twisted from them, as also from palm-fibre; sandals 
were plaited, and mats woven of them; but above all, 
when split into thin strips, it was possible to join them 
into sheets of tough paper, the well-known papyrus. 
That the writing of Egypt spread to Phoenicia and fur- 
nished the classic world with an alphabet, is in a measure 
due to this convenient writing material, as well as to the 
method of writing upon it with ink (BAR, IV, 562, 
582). 

85. The Nile was alive with boats, barges, and craft 
of all descriptions, bearing the products of these indus- 
tries, and of field and pasture, to the treasury of the 
Pharaoh, or to the markets where they were disposed 
of. Here barter was the common means of exchange: 



92 THE OLD KINGDOM 

a crude pot for a fish, a bundle of onions for a fan; a 
wooden box for a jar of ointment. In some transac- 
tions, however, presumably those involving larger 
values, gold and copper in rings of a fixed weight, cir- 
culated as money, and stone weights were already 
marked with their equivalence in such rings. This 
ring-money is the oldest currency known. Silver was 
rare and more valuable than gold. Business had al- 
ready reached a high degree of development; books and 
accounts were kept; orders and receipts were given; 
wills and deeds were made; and written contracts 
covering long periods of time were entered upon. Every 
noble had his corps of clerks and secretaries, and the 
exchange of letters and official documents with his 
colleagues was incessant. Save at Elephantine, these 
have all perished (PKM, 82 /.). 

86. Under such circumstances an education in the 
learning of the time was indispensable to an official 
career. Connected with the treasury, for whose multi- 
fold records so many skilled scribes were necessary, 
there were schools where lads received the education 
and the training which fitted them for the scribal offices, 
and lifted a youth above all other classes in the opinion 
of the scribe. The content of the instruction, besides 
innumerable moral precepts, many of them most whole- 
some and rational, was chiefly the method of writing. 
The elaborate hieroglyphic with its numerous animal 
and human figures, such as the reader has often seen on 
the monuments in our museums, or in works on Egypt, 
was too slow and laborious a method of writing for the 
needs of every-day business. The attempt to write 
these figures rapidly with ink upon papyrus had gradu- 
ally resulted in reducing each sign to a mere outline, 
much rounded off and abbreviated. This cursive 



INDUSTRY AND ART 93 

business hand, which we call "hieratic/' had already 
begun under the earliest dynasties, and by the rise of 
the Old Kingdom it had developed into a graceful and 
rapid system of writing, which showed no nearer re- 
semblance to the hieroglyphic than does our own hand- 
writing to our print. Thus was created for all time 
the class distinction between the illiterate and the 
learned, still a problem of modern society. It was the 
acquirement of this method of writing which enabled 
the lad to enter upon the coveted official career as a 
scribe, to become at last overseer of a magazine, or 
steward of an estate. 

87. Education thus consisted solely of the practically 
useful equipment for an official career. Knowledge of 
nature and of the external world as a whole was sought 
only as practical necessity prompted such search. It 
never occurred to the Egyptian to enter upon the search 
for truth for its own sake. Under these circumstances 
the science of the time, if we may speak of it as such at 
all, was such a knowledge of natural conditions as 
enabled the active men of this age to accomplish those 
practical tasks with which they were daily confronted. 
They had much practical acquaintance with astronomy, 
developed out of that knowledge which had enabled 
their ancestors to introduce a rational calendar nearly 
thirteen centuries before the rise of the Old Kingdom. 
They had already roughly mapped the heavens, iden- 
tified the more prominent fixed stars, and developed a 
system of observation with instruments sufficiently ac- 
curate to determine the positions of stars for practical 
purposes; but they had produced no theory of the 
heavenly bodies as a whole, nor would it ever have 
occurred to the Egyptian that such an attempt was use- 
ful or worth the trouble. In mathematics all the ordi- 



94 THE OLD KINGDOM 

nary arithmetical processes were demanded in the daily 
transactions of business and government, and had long 
since come into common use among the scribes. Frac- 
tions, however, caused difficulty. The scribes could 
operate only with those having one as the numerator, 
and all other fractions were of necessity resolved into a 
series of several, each with one as the numerator. The 
only exception was two-thirds. Elementary algebraic 
problems were also solved without difficulty. In 
geometry they were able to master the simpler proposi- 
tions; while the area of a trapezoid caused difficulty 
and error, that of the circle had been determined with 
close accuracy. The necessity of determining the con- 
tent of a pile of grain had led to a roughly approximate 
result in the computation of the content of the hemi- 
sphere, and a circular granary to that of the cylinder. 
But no theoretical or abstract propositions were dis- 
cussed, and the whole science attempted only those 
practical problems which were continually met in daily 
life. The laying out of a ground-plan like the square 
base of the Great Pyramid could be accomplished with 
amazing accuracy, and the orientation displays a nicety 
that almost rivals the results of modern instruments. 
A highly developed knowledge of mechanics was at 
the command of the architect and craftsman. The 
arch was employed in masonry, and can be dated as far 
back as the thirtieth century b. c, the oldest dated 
arches known. In the application of power to the 
movement of great monuments only the simplest de- 
vices were employed; the pulley was unknown, and 
probably the roller also. Medicine was already in 
possession of much empirical wisdom, displaying close 
and accurate observation; the calling of the physician 
already existed, and the court physician of the Pharaoh 



INDUSTRY AND ART 95 

was a man of rank and influence. His recipes were 
many of them rational and useful; but more were 
naively fanciful, like the prescription of a decoction 
of the hair of a black calf to prevent gray hair. Most 
depended upon magic for their efficacy, because disease 
was due to hostile spirits. They had already been 
collected and recorded in papyrus rolls (BAR, I, 246), 
and the recipes of this age were famous for their virtue 
in later times. Some of them finally crossed with the 
Greeks to Europe, where they are still in use among 
the peasantry of the present day. 

88. Art flourished as nowhere else in the ancient 
world. Here again the Egyptian's attitude of mind 
was not wholly that which characterized the art of the 
later Greek world. Art as the pursuit and the produc- 
tion exclusively of the ideally beautiful was unknown 
to him. He loved beauty as found in nature, his spirit 
demanded such beauty in his home and surroundings. 
The lotus blossomed on the handle of his spoon, and 
his wine sparkled in the deep blue calyx of the same 
flower; the muscular limb of the ox in carved ivory 
upheld the couch upon which he slept, the ceiling over 
his head was a starry heaven resting upon palm trunk 
columns, each crowned with its graceful tuft of droop- 
ing foliage; or papyrus stalks rose, from the floor to 
support the azure roof upon their swaying blossoms; 
doves and butterflies flitted across his in-door sky; his 
floors were frescoed with the opulent green of rich 
marsh-grasses, with fish gliding among their roots, 
where the wild ox tossed his head at the birds twitter- 
ing on the swaying grass-tops, as they strove in vain to 
drive away the stealthy weasel creeping up to plunder 
their nests. Everywhere the objects of every-day life 
in the homes of the rich showed unconscious beauty of 



96 THE OLD KINGDOM 

line and fine balance of proportion, while the beauty "of 
nature and of out-of-door life which spoke to the be- 
holder in the decoration on every hand, lent a certain 
distinction even to the most commonplace objects. 
The Egyptian thus sought to beautify and to make 
beautiful all objects of utility, but all such objects 
served some practical use. He was not inclined to 
make a beautiful thing solely for its beauty. In 
sculpture, therefore, the practical dominated. The 
splendid statues of the Old Kingdom were not madejo^ 
be erected in the market-place, but solely to be mar_ 
soned up in the mastaba tomb, that they might be«oj^^ 
practical advantage to the deceased in the hereaitei^^ 
(Sect. 63). It was this motive chiefly to which the 
marvellous development of portrait sculpture in the 
Old Kingdom was due. 

89. The sculptor might either put his model into 
stone by a process of exactly imitating his every feat- 
ure, or again depict him in accordance with a conven- 
tional ideal. Both styles, representing the same man, 
though strikingly different, may appear in the same 
tomb. Even" device was adopted to increase the re- 
semblance to life. The whole statue was coloured in 
the natural hues, the eyes were inlaid in rock-crystal, 
and the life likeness with which these Memphite sculpt- 
ures were instinct has never been surpassed. The 
finest of the sitting statues is the well-known portrait of 
Khafre, the builder of the second pyramid of Gizeh. 
In the most difficult stone, like diorite, the sculptor 
skilfully met the limitations imposed upon him by the 
intensely hard and refractory material, and while 
obliged, therefore, to treat the subject summarily, he 
slightly emphasized salient features, lest the work 
should lack pronounced character. These unknown 



INDUSTRY AND ART 97 

masters, who must take their place among the world's 
great sculptors, while contending with technical diffi- 
culties which no modern sculptor attempts, were even 
more successful in softer material, like limestone, where 
they gained a freer hand, although the number of 
postures was strictly limited by convention. In copper 
the sculptors of Pepi I even produced a life-size statue 
of the king, the head of which is one of the strongest 
portraits surviving from antiquity (BH, 104, Figs. 53- 
54). Superb animal forms, like the granite lion's head 
from the sun-temple of Nuserre were also wrought in 
the hardest stone. 

The goldsmith also invaded the realm of plastic 
art. In the " gold-house/ ' as his workshop was called, 
he turned sculptor, and produced for the temples such 
cultus statues of the gods as the magnificent figure of 
the sacred hawk of Hieraconpolis, of which Quibell 
found the head in the temple at that place. 

90. In relief, now greatly in demand for temple 
decoration, and the chapel of the mastaba tomb, the 
Egyptian was confronted by the problem of foreshort- 
ening and perspective. He must put objects having 
thickness and roundness upon a flat surface. How 
this should be done had been determined for him be- 
fore the beginning of the Old Kingdom. A conven- 
tional style had already been established before the 
Third Dynasty, and that style was now sacred and in- 
violable tradition. While a certain freedom of develop- 
ment survived, that style in its fundamentals persisted 
throughout the history of Egyptian art, even after the 
artist had learned to perceive its shortcomings. The 
age which produced it had not learned to maintain one 
stand-point in the drawing of any given scene or object; 
two different points of view were combined in the same 



98 THE OLD KINGDOM 

figure: in drawing a man a front view of the eyes and 
shoulders was regularly placed upon a profile of the 
trunk and head. This unconscious incongruity was 
afterward also extended to temporal relations, and suc- 
cessive instants of time were combined in the same 
scene. Accepting these limitations, the reliefs of the 
Old Kingdom, which are really slightly modelled 
drawings, are often sculptures of great beauty, es- 
pecially in their exquisite modelling. It is from the 
scenes which the Memphite sculptor placed on the walls 
of the mastaba chapels that we learn all that we know 
of the life and customs of the Old Kingdom. All such 
reliefs were coloured, so that when completed we may 
call them raised and modelled paintings; at least they 
do not fall within the domain of plastic art, as do Greek 
reliefs. Painting was also practiced independently, 
and the familiar line of ducks from a tomb at Medum 
(BH, Fig. 55) well illustrates the strength and freedom 
with which the Memphite of the time could depict the 
animal forms with which he was familiar. 

91. The sculpture of the Old Kingdom may be char- 
acterized as a natural and unconscious realism, exer- 
cised with a technical ability of the highest order. In 
the practice of this art the sculptor of the Old King- 
dom in some respects compares favourably even with 
modern artists. He was the only artist in the early Ori- 
ent who could put the human body into stone, and liv- 
ing in a society such that he was daily familiarized with 
the nude form, he treated it with sincerity and frank- 
ness. I cannot forbear quoting, the words of an un- 
prejudiced classical archaeologist, M. Georges Perrot, 
who saysof the Memphite sculptors of the Old Kingdom, 
"It must be acknowledged that they produced works 
which are not to be surpassed in their way by the great- 



INDUSTRY AND ART 99 

est portraits of modern Europe" (PCHA, II, 194). The 
sculpture of the Old Kingdom, however, was super- 
ficial; it was not interpretative, did not embody ideas 
in stone and shows little contemplation of the emotions 
and forces of life. It is characteristic of the age that 
we must speak of this Memphite art as a whole. We 
know none of its greatest masters, and only the names 
of an artist or two during the whole period of Egyptian 
history. 

92. It is only very recently that we have been able to 
discern the fundamentals of Old Kingdom architecture. 
Too little has been preserved of the house and palace 
of the time to permit of safe generalizations upon the 
light and airy style of architecture which they repre- 
sent. It is only the massive stone structures of this 
age which have been preserved. Besides the mastabas 
and pyramids, which we have already briefly noticed, 
the temple is the great architectural achievement of 
the Old Kingdom. Its arrangement has been touched 
upon in the preceding chapter. The architect em- 
ployed only straight lines, these being perpendiculars 
and horizontals, very boldly and felicitously combined. 
The arch, although known, was not employed as a 
member in architecture. In order to carry the roof 
across the void, either the simplest of stone piers, a 
square pillar of a single block of granite was employed, 
or an already elaborate and beautiful monolithic column 
of granite supported the architrave. These columns, 
the earliest known in the history of architecture, may 
have been employed before the Old Kingdom, for they 
are fully developed in the Fifth Dynasty. They repre- 
sent a palm-tree, the capital being the crown of foliage; 
or they are conceived as a bundle of papyrus stalks, 
bearing the architrave upon the cluster of buds at the 

tore. 



100 THE OLD KINGDOM 

top, which form the capital. The proportions are 
graceful and elegant, and surrounded with such ex- 
quisite colonnades as these, flanked by brightly coloured 
reliefs, the courts of the Old Kingdom temples belong 
to the noblest architectural conceptions bequeathed to 
us by antiquity. Egypt thus became the source of 
columned architecture. While the Babylonian build- 
ers displayed notable skill in giving varied architectural 
effect to great masses, they were limited to this, and 
the colonnade was unknown to them; whereas the 
Egyptian already at the close of the fourth millennium 
before Christ had solved the fundamental problem of 
great architecture, developing with the most refined 
artistic sense and the greatest mechanical skill the 
treatment of voids (as opposed to the Tnasses of the 
Babylonian), and thus originating the colonnade. 

93. The age was dealing with material things and 
developing material resources, and in such an age 
literature has little opportunity; it was indeed hardly 
born as yet. The sages of the court, the wise old 
viziers, Kegemne, Imhotep, and Ptahhotep, had put 
into proverbs the wholesome wisdom of life, which a 
long career had taught them, and these were probably 
already circulating in written form, although the oldest 
manuscript of such lore which we possess dates from 
the Middle Kingdom. The Palermo Stone (see p. 47) 
was but a bald catalogue of events, achievements and 
temple donations, without literary form. It is the 
oldest surviving fragment of royal annals. As the 
desire to perpetuate the story of a distinguished life 
increased, the nobles began to record in their tombs 
.simple narratives characterized by a primitive direct- 
ness, in long successions of simple sentences, each 
.showing the same construction, but lacking expressed 



INDUSTRY AND ART 101 

connectives (BAR 5 I, 292-294; 306-315; 319-324). 
Events and honours common to the lives of the leading 
nobles were related by them all in identical words, 
so that conventional phrases had already gained a place 
in literature not unlike the inviolable canons of their 
graphic art. There is no individuality. The mortu- 
ary texts in the pyramids display sometimes a rude 
force, and an almost savage fire. They contain scat- 
tered fragments of the old myths, but whether these 
had then enjoyed more than an oral existence we do 
not know. Mutilated religious poems, exhibiting* in 
form the beginnings of parallelism, are imbedded in 
this literature, and are doubtless examples of the oldest 
poetry of earliest Egypt. All this literature, both in 
form and content, betrays its origin among men of the 
early world. Folk songs, the offspring of the toiling 
peasant's flitting fancy, or of the personal devotion of 
the household servant, were common then as now, and 
in two of them which have survived we hear the shep- 
herd talking with the sheep, or the bearers of the sedan- 
chair assuring their lord in song that to them the vehicle 
is lighter when he occupies it than when it is empty 
(BH, p. 92, Fig. 39; DDG, II, pi. viii). Music also 
was cultivated; and there was a director of the royal 
music at the court. The instruments were a small 
harp, on which the performer played sitting, and two 
kinds of flute, a large and a smaller. Instrumental 
music was always accompanied by the voice, revers- 
ing modern custom, and the full orchestra consisted 
of two harps and two flutes, a large and a small one. 
Of the character and nature of the music played or 
to what extent the scale was understood, we can say 
nothing. 

Such, in so far as we have been able to condense our 



102 THE OLD KINGDOM 

present knowledge, was the active and aggressive age 
which unfolds before us, as the kings of the Thinite 
dynasties give way to those of Memphis. It now re- 
mains for us to trace the career of this, the most ancient 
state, whose constitution is still discernible. 



VI 

THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 

94. At the close of the so-called Second Dynasty, 
early in the thirtieth century b. c, the Thinites, ac- 
cording to Manetho, were finally dislodged from^the 
position of power which they had maintained so well 
for over four centuries, and a Memphite family, whose 
home was the "White Wall," gained the ascendancy. 
But there is evidence that the sharp dynastic division 
recorded by Manetho never took place, and this final 
supremacy of Memphis may have been nothing more 
than a gradual transition thither by the Thinites them- 
selves. In any case the great queen, Nemathap, the 
wife of King Khasekhemui, who was probably the last 
king of the Second Dynasty, was evidently the mother 
of Zoser, with whose accession the predominance of 
Memphis becomes apparent. During this Memphite 
supremacy, the development which the Thinites had 
pushed so vigorously, was skilfully and ably fostered. 
For over five hundred years the kingdom continued to 
flourish, but of these five centuries only the last two 
have left us even scanty literary remains, and we are 
obliged to draw our meagre knowledge of its first three 
centuries almost entirely from material documents, the 
monuments which it has left us. In some degree such 
a task is like attempting to reconstruct a history of 
Athens in the age of Pericles, based entirely upon the 

103 



104 THE OLD KINGDOM 

temples, sculptures, vases, and other material remains 
surviving from his time. While the multifold life which 
was then unfolding in Athens involved a mental endow- 
ment and a condition of state and society which Egypt, 
even at her best, never knew, vet it must not be for- 
gotten that, tremendous as is the impression which we 
receive from the monuments of the Old Kingdom, they 
are but the skeleton, upon which we might put flesh, 
and endue the whole with life, if but the chief literary 
monuments of the time had survived. It is a difficult 
tas^ to discern behind these Titanic achievements the 
busy world of commerce, industry, administration, so- 
ciety, art, and literature out of which they grew. Of 
half a millennium of political change, of overthrow and 
usurpation, of growth and decay of institutions, of local 
governors, helpless under the strong grasp of the 
Pharaoh, or shaking off the restraint of a weak mon- 
arch, and developing into independent barons, so power- 
ful at last as to bring in the final dissolution of the state 
— of all this we gain but fleeting and occasional glimpses, 
where more must be guessed than can be known. 

95. The first prominent figure in the Old Kingdom 
is that of Zoser, with whom, as we have said, the Third 
Dynasty arose. It was evidently his strong hand 
which firmly established Memphite supremacy. He 
continued the exploitation of the copper mines in Sinai, 
while in the south he extended his power in some form 
of control over the turbulent Nubian tribes, just beyond 
the first cataract, if we may credit a late tradition of 
the priests (SU, II, 22-26). The success of Zoser's 
efforts was perhaps in part due to the counsel of the 
gnat wise man, Imhotep, who was one of his chief 
advisers. In priestly wisdom, in magic, in the formula- 
tion of wise proverbs, in medicine and architecture, this 



THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 105 

remarkable figure of Zoser's reign left so notable a 
reputation that his name was never forgotten, and two 
thousand five hundred years after his death he had 
become a god of medicine, in whom the Greeks, who 
called him Imouthes, recognized their own Asklepios 
(SU, II). Manetho records the tradition that stone 
building was first introduced by Zoser, whom he calls 
Tosorthros, and although, as we have seen, stone struct- 
ures of earlier date are now known, yet the great repu- 
tation as a builder ascribed to Zoser's counsellor, Im- 
hotep, is no accident, and it is evident that Zoser's reign 
marked the beginning of extensive building in stone. 
Until his reign the royal tombs were built of sun-dried 
bricks, only containing in one instance a granite floor 
and in another a chamber of limestone. This brick 
tomb was greatly improved by Zoser, who built at Bet 
Khallaf, near Abydos, an elaborate brick mastaba, the 
first of the two tombs now customarily erected by the 
Pharaoh (infra, p. 72; GMBK). Doubtless assisted 
by Imhotep, he undertook the construction of a royal 
mausoleum on a more ambitious plan than any of his 
ancestors had ever attempted. In the desert behind 
Memphis he laid out a large mastaba of stone, which 
he enlarged into a tall terraced monument one hundred 
and ninety feet high, by superimposing five successively 
smaller mastabas upon it. It is often called the "ter- 
raced pyramid," and does indeed constitute the tran- 
sitional form between the mastaba, first built in Zoser's 
time at Bet Khallaf, and the pyramid of his successors, 
which immediately followed. It is the first large struct- 
ure of stone known in history. 

96. The wealth and power evident in Zoser's costly 
and imposing tomb were continued by the other kings 
of the dynasty, whose order and history it is as yet in> 



106 THE OLD KINGDOM 

possible to reconstruct. It is probable that we should 
attribute to one of them the great blunted stone prvamid 
of Dahshur, and if this conclusion be correct, such a 
monument is a striking testimony to the wealth and 
power of this Third Dynasty. At the close of the 
dynasty the nation was enjoying wide prosperity under 
the vigorous and far-seeing Snefru. He built vessels 
nearly one hundred and seventy feet long, for traffic 
and administration upon the river; he continued the 
development of the copper mines in Sinai, where he 
defeated the native tribes and left a record of his tri- 
umph (BAR, I, 146-147, 16S-169). He placed 
Egyptian interests in the peninsula upon such a per- 
manent basis that he was later looked upon as the 
founder and establisher of Egyptian supremacy there, 
and he became a patron god of the district (LD, II, 
137g; BAR, I, 722, 731). He regulated the eastern 
frontier, and it is not unlikely that we should attribute 
to him the erection of the fortresses at the Bitter Lakes 
in the Isthmus of Suez, which existed already in the 
Fifth Dynasty. Roads and stations in the eastern 
Delta still bore his name fifteen hundred years after 
his death. In the west it is not improbable that he 
already controlled one of the northern oases. More 
than all this, he opened up commerce with the north 
and sent a fleet of forty vessels to the Phoenician coast 
to procure cedar logs from the slopes of Lebanon. 
This is the earliest known naval expedition on the open 
sea. He was equally aggressive in the south, where he 
conducted a campaign against northern Xubia, bring- 
ing back seven thousand prisoners, and two hundred 
thousand large and small cattle (BAR, I, 165, 5; 312, 1. 
21; 174, 1. 9; 146). 

'.'7. The first of the two tombs built by Snefru is 



THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 107 

situated at Medum, between Memphis and the Fayum, 
Erected as a terraced monument, like that of Zoser, its 
terraces were finally filled out in one smooth slope from 
top to bottom at a different angle, thus producing the 
first pyramid. Like Zoser, Snefru's first tomb was 
much less pretentious than his second, the great stone 
pyramid which he built at Dahshur, nearer Memphis. 
Three hundred years later we still find its town and 
priesthood exempt by royal decree from all state dues 
and levies (AZ, 42, Iff.). 

98. With Snefru the rising tide of prosperity and 
power has reached the high level which made the sub- 
sequent splendour of the Old Kingdom possible. With 
him there had also grown up the rich and powerful 
noble and official class, whose life we have already 
sketched — a class who are no longer content with the 
simple brick tombs of their ancestors at Abydos and 
vicinity. Their splendid mastabas of hewn limestone 
are still grouped as formerly about the tomb of the 
king whom they served. It is the surviving remains 
in these imposing cities of the dead, dominated by the 
towering mass of the pyramid, which has enabled us to 
gain a picture of the life of the great kingdom, the 
threshold of which we have now crossed. Behind us 
lies the long slow development which contained the 
promise of all that is before us; but that development 
also we were obliged to trace in the tomb of the early 
Egyptian, as we have followed him from the sand-heap 
that covered his primitive ancestor to the colossal 
pyramid of the Pharaoh. 

99. The passing of the great family of which Snefru 
was the most prominent representative did not, as far 
as we can now see, effect any serious change in the 
history of the nation. Indeed Khufu, the founder of 



10S THE OLD KINGDOM 

the so-called Fourth Dynasty, may possibly have been 
a scion of the Third. There was in his harem at least 
a lady who had also been a favourite of Snefru. Khufu, 
however, was not a Memphite. He came from a town 
of middle Egypt near modern Benihasan, which was 
afterward, for this reason, called " Menat-Khufu," 
"Nurse of Khufu." We have no means of knowing 
how the noble of a provincial town succeeded in sup- 
planting the line of the powerful Snefru and becoming 
the founder of a new line. We only see him looming 
grandly from the obscure array of Pharaohs of his time, 
his greatness proclaimed by the noble tomb which he 
erected at Gizeh, opposite modern Cairo. How strong 
and effective must have been the organization of 
Khufu's government we appreciate in some measure 
when we learn that his pyramid contains some two 
million three hundred thousand blocks, each weighing 
on the average two and a half tons (PG). Herodotus 
relates a tradition current in his time that the pyramid 
had demanded the labour of a hundred thousand men 
during twenty years, and Petrie has shown that these 
numbers are quite credible. The maintenance of this 
city of a hundred thousand labourers, who were non- 
producing and a constant burden on the state, the ad- 
justment of the labour in the quarries, so as to ensure 
an uninterrupted accession of material around the 
base of the pyramid, will have entailed the development 
of a small state in itself. Not merely was this work 
quantitatively so formidable, but in quality also it is 
the most remarkable material enterprise known to us 
anywhere in this early world, for the most ponderous 
masonry in the pyramid amazes the modern beholder 
by its fineness. The pyramid is, or was, about four 
hundred and eighty-one feet high, and its square base, 



THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 109 

covering some thirteen acres, measured seven hundred 
and fifty-five feet on a side, but the average error is 
"less than a ten-thousandth of the side in equality, in 
squareness and in level" (PHE, I, 40); although a rise 
of ground on the site of the monument prevented direct 
measurements from corner to corner. Some of the 
masonry finish is so fine that blocks weighing many 
tons are set together with seams of considerable length, 
showing a joint of one ten-thousandth of an inch, and 
involving edges and surfaces "equal to optician's work 
of the present day, but on a scale of acres instead of 
feet or yards of material" (ibid.). The entire monu- 
ment is of limestone, except the main sepulchral cham- 
ber, which is of granite. The passages were skilfully 
closed at successive places by plug-blocks and port- 
cullisses of granite; while the exterior, clothed with an 
exquisitely fitted casing of limestone, which has since 
been quarried away, nowhere betrayed the place of 
entrance, located in the eighteenth course of masonry 
above the base near the centre of the north face. 
Three small pyramids, built for members of Khufu's 
family stand in a line close by on the south. The 
pyramid was surrounded by a wide pavement of lime- 
stone, and on the east front was the temple for the 
mortuary service of Khufu, of which all but portions 
of a splendid basalt pavement has disappeared. The 
remains of the causeway leading up from the plain to 
the temple still rise in sombre ruin, disclosing only the 
rough core masonry, across which the modern village 
of Kafr is now built. Further south is a section of 
the wall which surrounded the town on the plain below, 
probably the place of Khufu's residence, and perhaps 
the residence of the dynasty. In leaving the tomb of 
Khufu our admiration for the monument, whether 



110 THE OLD KINGDOM 

stirred by its vast dimensions or by the fineness of its 
masonry, should not obscure its real and final signifi- 
cance; for the great pyramid is the earliest and most 
impressive witness surviving from the ancient world, 
to the final emergence of organized society from pre- 
historic chaos and local conflict, thus coming for the 
first time completely under the power of a far-reaching 
and comprehensive centralization effected by one con- 
trolling mind. 

100. Khufu's name has been found from Desuk in 
the northwestern and Bubastis in the eastern Delta, to 
Hieraconpolis in the south, but we know almost nothing 
of his other achievements. He continued operations in 
the peninsula of Sinai (BAR, I, 176); perhaps opened 
for the first time, and in any case kept workmen in the 
alabaster quarry of Hatnub; and Ptolemaic tradition 
also made him the builder of a Hathor temple at Den- 
dereh (DD, p. 15). But we know nothing further of his 
great and prosperous reign. 

101. It is uncertain whether his successor, Khafre, 
was his son or not. But the new king's name, which 
means " His Shining is Re," would indicate the political 
influence of the priests of Re at Heliopolis. He built 
a pyramid beside that of Khufu, but it is somewhat 
smaller and distinctly inferior in workmanship. Scanty 
remains of the pyramid-temple on the east side are 
still in place, from which the usual causeway leads 
down to the margin of the plateau and terminates in a 
splendid granite building, which served as the gateway 
to the causeway and the pyramid enclosure above. 
This imposing entrance stands beside the Great Sphinx, 
and is still usually termed the "temple of the sphinx," 
with which it had, however, nothing to do. Whether 
the sphinx itself is the work of Khafre is not yet deter- 



THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 111 

mined. The Great Sphinx, like other Egyptian 
sphinxes, is the portrait of a Pharaoh, and an obscure 
reference to Khafre in an inscription between its fore- 
paws, dated fourteen hundred years later in the reign 
of Thutmose IV, perhaps shows that in those times he 
was considered to have had something to do with it 
(BAR, II, 815). Beyond these buildings we know 
nothing of Khafre's deeds, but these show clearly that 
the great state which Khufu had done so much to 
create was still firmly controlled by the Pharaoh. 

102. Under Khafre's successor, Menkure, however, 
if the size of the royal pyramid is an adequate basis for 
judgment, the power of the royal house was no longer 
so absolute. The third pyramid of Gizeh, which we 
owe to him, is less than half as high as those of Khufu 
and Khafre; its ruined temple, recently excavated by 
Reisner, was evidently unfinished at his death, and his 
successor put in only sun-dried brick instead of the 
granite facing it was intended to receive. Besides this, 
the causeway, still submerged in sand, and three small 
pyramids of Menkure's family, are all that remains of 
his splendour. Of his immediate successors we pos- 
sess contemporary monuments only from the reign of 
Shepseskaf. Although we have a record that he se- 
lected the site for his pyramid in his first year (BAR, I, 
151), he was unable to erect a monument sufficiently 
large and durable to survive, and we do not even know 
where it was located; while of the achievements of 
this whole group of kings at the close of the Fourth 
Dynasty, including several interlopers, who may now 
have assumed the throne for a brief time, we know 
nothing whatever. 

103. The cause of the fall of the Fourth Dynasty, 
while not clear in the details, is in the main outlines 



112 THE OLD KINGDOM 

tolerably certain. The priests of Re at Heliopolis, 
whose influence is also evident in the names of the kings 
following Khufu, had succeeded in organizing their 
political influence, becoming a party of sufficient power 
to overthrow the old line. The state theology had 
always represented the king as the successor of the sun- 
god, and he had borne the title "Horus," a sun-god, 
from the beginning; but the priests of Heliopolis now 
demanded that he be the bodily son of Re, who hence- 
forth would appear on earth to become the father of 
the Pharaoh. A folk-tale (PW), of which we have a 
copy, some nine hundred years later than the fall of 
the Fourth Dynasty, relates how Khufu, while enjoying 
an idle hour with his sons, learned from an ancient 
wiseman that the three children soon to be borne by 
the wife of a certain priest of Re were begotten of Re 
himself, and that they should all become kings of 
Egypt. The names given these children by the dis- 
guised divinities who assisted at their birth were: 
Userkaf, Sahure and Kakai, the names of the first three 
kings of the Fifth Dynasty. In this folk-tale we have 
the popular form of what is now the state fiction : every 
Pharaoh is the bodily son of the sun-god, a belief which 
was thereafter maintained throughout the history of 
Egypt (BAR, II, 187-212). 

104. The kings of the Fifth Dynasty, who continued 
to reside in the vicinity of Memphis, began to rule 
about 2750 b. c. They show plain traces of the origin 
ascribed to them by the popular tradition; the official 
name which they assume at the coronation must in- 
variably contain the name of Re. Before this name 
must now be placed a new title, "Son of Re." Be- 
sides the old " Horus" title and another new title 
representing the Horus-hawk trampling upon the 



THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 113 

symbol of Set, this new designation "Son of Re" was 
the fifth title peculiar to the Pharaohs, later producing 
the complete Pharaonic titulary as it remained through- 
out their history. Their adherence to the cult of Re 
as the state religion far excellence found immediate 
and practical expression in the most splendid form. 
By the royal residence near later Memphis each king 
erected a magnificent temple to the sun, each bearing a 
name like "Favourite Place of Re," or "Satisfaction 
of Re," and having in place of a holy of holies at the 
rear an enclosure in which rose a tall obelisk exposed 
to the sky. On either side of the sanctuary on a brick 
foundation were set up two ships representing the two 
celestial barques of the sun-god, as he sailed the heavens 
morning and evening. The sanctuary was richly en- 
dowed and its service was maintained by a corps of 
priests (BAR, I, 159, 8). in whose titles we can follow 
these temples, one for each king, at least into the reign 
of Isesi, the eighth monarch of the line (FE, p. 13). 
Enjoying wealth and distinction such as had been pos- 
sessed by no official god of earlier times, Re gained a 
position of influence which he never again lost. Through 
him the forms of the Egyptian state began to pass over 
into the world of the gods, and the myths from now on 
were dominated and strongly coloured by him, if indeed 
some of them did not owe their origin to the exalted 
place which Re now occupied. In the sun-myth he 
became king of Upper and Lower Egypt and, like a 
Pharaoh, he had ruled Egypt with Thoth as his vizier. 
105. The change in the royal line is also evident in 
the organization of the government. The eldest son 
of the king is no longer the most powerful officer in the 
state, but the position which he held in the Fourth 
Dynasty as vizier and chief judge is now the preroga- 



114 THE OLD KINGDOM 

tive of another family, with whom it remains hereditary. 
Each incumbent, through five generations, bore the 
name Ptahhotep. This hereditary succession, so strik- 
ing in the highest office of the central government, was 
now common in the nomes also, and the local governors 
were each gaining stronger and stronger foothold in 
his nome as the generations passed, and son succeeded 
father in the same nome (BAR, I, 213 Jf.). 

106. ^Yhile Userkaf, as the founder of the new 
dynasty, may have had enough to do to make secure 
the succession of his line, he has left his names on the 
rocks at the first cataract, the earliest of the long series 
of rock-inscriptions there, which from now on will 
furnish us many hints of the career of the Pharaohs in 
the south (MMD, 54 e). Sahure, who followed User- 
kaf, continued the development of Egypt as the earli- 
est known naval power in history. He dispatched a 
fleet against the Phoenician coast, and a relief just 
discovered in his pyramid-temple at Abusir shows 
four of the ships, with Phoenician captives among the 
Egyptian sailors. This is the earliest surviving rep- 
resentation of sea-going ships (c. 2750 b. a), and the 
oldest known picture of Semitic Syrians. Another 
fleet was sent by Sahure to still remoter waters, on a 
voyage to Punt, the Somali coast at the south end 
of the Red Sea, and along the south side of the gulf 
of Aden. From this region, which, like the whole 
east, was termed the " God's-Land," were obtained 
the fragrant gums and resins so much desired for the 
incense and ointments indispensable in the life of the 
Oriental. Intercourse with this country had been 
carried on for centuries (BAR, II, 247), but Sahure 
was the first Pharaoh of whom the monuments record 
the dispatch of a special expedition thither. This ex- 



THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 115 

pedition brought back 80,000 measures of myrrh, prob- 
ably 6,000 weight of electrum (gold-silver alloy), be- 
sides 2,600 staves of some costly wood, presumably 
ebony (BAR, I, 161, 8). We find his officials at the 
first cataract also, one of whom left the earliest of the 
long series of inscriptions on the rocks there (MCM, 
I, 88), while an expedition to Sinai returned richly 
laden (BAR, I, 161, 7; 236). 

107. We can only discern enough of the next four 
reigns to gain faint impressions of a powerful and 
cultured state, conserving all its internal wealth and 
reaching out to distant regions around it for the ma- 
terials which its own natural resources do not furnish. 
Toward the end of the dynasty, in the second half of 
the twenty-seventh century b. c, Isesi opened the 
quarries of the Wadi Hammamat in the eastern desert, 
three days' journey from the Nile, and two days from 
the Red Sea port, from which the Isesi's fleet sailed for 
Punt on the second voyage thither known to us (BAR, 
I, 351, 353). His successor, Unis, must have been 
active in the south, for we find his name at the frontier 
of the first cataract, followed by the epithet "lord of 
countries" (PS. xii, No. 312). 

108. Under Isesi we perceive more clearly the rising 
power of the officials, who from now on never fail to 
make themselves increasingly prominent in all records 
of the royal achievements (BAR, I, 264, 266). It is a 
power with which the Pharaoh will find more and more 
difficulty in dealing as time passes. There is now per- 
haps another evidence of declining power in the com- 
paratively diminutive size and poorer workmanship of 
the Fifth Dynasty pyramids, ranged along the desert 
margin south of Gizeh, at Abusir and Sakkara. The 
centralized power of the earlier Pharaohs was thus 



116 THE OLD KINGDOM 

visibly weakening, and it was indeed in every way 
desirable that there should be a reaction against the 
totally abnormal absorption by the Pharaoh's tomb of 
such a large proportion of the national wealth. 

109. The transitional period of the Fifth Dynasty, 
lasting probably a century and a quarter, during which 
nine kings reigned, was therefore one of significant 
political development, and in material civilization one 
of distinct progress. Architecture passed from the 
massive, unadorned, rectangular granite pillars of the 
Fourth Dynasty at Gizeh to the graceful papyrus and 
palm-crowned columns and colonnades of the sun- and 
pyramid-temples at Abusir. Art thus flourished as 
before, and great works of Egyptian sculpture were 
produced; while in literature Ptahhotep, King Isesi's 
vizier and chief judge composed his proverbial wisdom, 
which we have already discussed. The state religion 
received a form worthy of so great a nation, the temples 
throughout the land enjoyed constant attention, and 
the larger sanctuaries were given endowments com- 
mensurate with the more elaborate daily offerings on 
the king's behalf (BAR, I, 154-167). It is this pe- 
riod which has preserved our first religious literature of 
any extent, as well as our earliest lengthy example of 
the Egyptian language. In the pyramid of Unis, the 
last king of the dynasty, is recorded the collection of 
mortuary ritualistic utterances, the so-called Pyramid 
Texts which we have before discussed (p. 68). As 
most of them belong to a still earlier age, and some of 
them originated in predynastic times, they represent a 
much earlier form of language and belief than those of 
the generation to which the pyramid of Unis belongs. 



VII 



THE SIXTH DYNASTY: THE DECLINE OF THE OLD 
KINGDOM 

110. In the fullest of the royal lists, the Turin Papy- 
rus, there is no indication that the line of Menes was in- 
terrupted until the close of the reign of Unis. That a 
new dynasty arose at this point there can be no doubt. 
As the reader has probably already perceived (sect. 105), 
the movement which brought in this new dynasty was 
due to a struggle of the local governors for a larger 
degree of power and liberty. The establishment of 
the Fifth Dynasty by the influence of the Heliopolitan 
party had given them the opportunity they desired. 
They gained hereditary hold upon their offices, and the 
kings of that family had never been able to regain the 
complete control over them maintained by the Fourth 
Dynasty. Gradually the local governors had then 
shaken off the restraint of the Pharaoh; and when 
about 2625 b. c, after the reign of Unis, they succeeded 
in overthrowing the Fifth Dynasty, they became landed 
barons, each firmly entrenched in his nome, or city, 
and maintaining an hereditary claim upon it. The old 
title of " local governor " disappeared as a matter of 
course, and the men who had once borne it now T called 
themselves "great chief" or "great lord" of this or 
that nome. They continued the local government as 
before, but as princes with a large degree of indepen- 

117 



US THE OLD KINGDOM 

dence, not as officials of the central government. We 
have here the first example traceable in history of the 
dissolution of a centralized state by a process of ag- 
grandizement on the part of local officials of the crown, 
like that which resolved the Carlovingian empire into 
duchies, landgraviates, or petty principalities. The new 
lords were not able to render their tenure uncondition- 
ally hereditary, but here the monarch still maintained 
a powerful hold upon them; for at the death of a noble 
his position, his fief and his title must be conferred upon 
the inheriting son by the gracious favour of the Pha- 
raoh. These nomarchs or "great lords" are loyal ad- 
herents of the Pharaoh, executing his commissions in 
distant regions, and displaying the greatest zeal in his 
cause; but they are no longer his officials merely; nor 
are they so attached to the court and person of the 
monarch as to build their tombs around his pyramid. 
They now have sufficient independence and local at- 
tachment to erect their tombs near their homes. They 
devote much attention to the development and pros- 
perity of their great domains, and one of them even 
tells how he brought in emigrants from neighbouring 
nomes to settle in the feebler towns and infuse new 
blood into the less productive districts of his own 
nome (BAR, I, 281). 

111. The chief administrative bond which united 
the nomes to the central government of the Pharaoh 
will have been the treasury as before; but the Pharaoh 
found it necessary to exert general control over the 
great group of fiefs which now comprised his kingdom , 
and already toward the end of the Fifth Dynasty he 
had therefore appointed over the whole of the valley 
above the Delta a "governor of the South," through 
whom he was able constantly to exert governmental 



THE DECLINE OF THE OLD KINGDOM 119 

pressure upon the southern nobles; there seems to 
have been no corresponding "governor of the North," 
and we may infer that the lords of the North were less 
aggressive. Moreover, the kings still feel themselves to 
be kings of the South governing the North. 

112. The seat of government, the chief royal resi- 
dence, was, as before, in the vicinity of Memphis, still 
called the "White Wall"; but after the obscure reign 
of Teti II, and possibly Userkere, the first two kings of 
the new dynasty, the pyramid-city of his successor, the 
powerful Pepi I, was so close to the "White Wall" that 
the name of his pyramid, "Men-nofer," corrupted by 
the Greeks to Memphis, rapidly passed to the city, and 
"White Wall" survived only as an archaic and poetic 
designation of the place. The administration of the 
residence had become a matter of sufficient importance 
to demand the attention of the vizier himself. He 
henceforth assumed its immediate control, receiving the 
title "governor of the pyramid-city" or "governor of 
the city " merely, for it now became customary to speak 
of the residence as the "city." Notwithstanding 
thorough-going changes, the new dynasty continued the 
official cult maintained by their predecessors. Re 
remained supreme, and the old foundations were re- 
spected. 

113. In spite of the independence of the new nobles, 
it is evident that Pepi I possessed the necessary force to 
hold them well in hand. His monuments, large and 
small, are found throughout Egypt. Now began also 
the biographies of the officials of the time, affording 
us a picture of the busy life of the self-satisfied magnates 
of that distant age; while to these we may fortunately 
add also the records at the mines and in the quarries. 
Loyalty now demands no more than a relief showing 



120 THE OLD KINGDOM 

the king as he worships his gods or smites his enemies; 
and this done, the vanity of the commander of the ex- 
pedition and his fellows may be gratified in a record of 
their deeds or adventures, which becomes longer and 
longer as time passes. In the quarries of Hammamat 
and Hatnub, as well as in Wady Maghara in Sinai the 
officials of Pepi I have left their records with full lists 
of their names and titles (BAR, I, 295-301; 304-305; 
302-303). We have a very interesting and instructive 
example of this official class under the new regime in 
Uni, a faithful adherent of the royal house, w T ho has 
fortunately left us his biography. Under king Teti II 
he had begun his career at the bottom as an obscure 
under-custodian in the royal domains. Pepi I now 
appointed him as a judge, at the same time giving him 
rank at the royal court, and an income as a priest of 
the pyramid-temple. He was soon promoted to a 
superior custodianship of the royal domains, and in 
this capacity he had so gained the royal favour that 
when a conspiracy against the king arose in the harem 
he was nominated with one colleague to prosecute the 
case. Pepi I thus strove to single out men of force 
and ability with whom he might organize a strong 
government, closely attached to his fortunes and to 
those of his house. In the heart of the southern 
country he set up among the nobles the "great lord of 
the Hare-nome," and made him governor of the South; 
while he married as his official queens the two sisters of 
the nomarch of Thinis, both bearing the same name, 
Enekhnes-Merire, and they became the mothers of the 
two kings who followed him (BAR, I, 294, 307, 310, 
344-349). 
r^ 114. The foreign policy of Pepi I was more vigorous 
[ than that of any Pharaoh of earlier times. In Nubia 



THE DECLINE OF THE OLD KINGDOM 121 

he gained such control over the negro tribes that they 
were obliged to contribute quotas to his army in case of 
war. When such war was in the north, where safety 
permitted these negro levies were freely employed, and 
in Egypt they formed a regular contingent of gens- 
darmes in state service (AZ, 42, Iff.). The Beduin 
tribes of the north, having become too bold in their raid- 
ing of the eastern Delta, or having troubled his mining 
expeditions in Sinai, Pepi commissioned Uni to collect 
such an army among the negroes, supplemented by 
levies throughout Egypt. On five successive punitive 
expeditions Pepi I sent him against the tribes of this 
country; while a sixth carried him in troop-ships along 
the coast of Palestine, to punish the Asiatics as far north 
as the highlands of Palestine, and Phoenicia, a naval 
expedition like that of Sahure some two centuries 
earlier (sect. 106). The naive account of these wars 
left by Uni in his biography is one of the most char- 
acteristic evidences of the totally unwarlike spirit of'/ 
the early Egyptian (BAR, I, 311-315). ■ — I 

115. Having thus firmly established his family at the 
head of the state, the fact that Pepi Fs death, after a 
reign of probably twenty years, left his son, Meniere, 
to administer the kingdom as a mere youth, seems not 
in the least to have shaken its fortunes. Meniere im- 
mediately appointed Uni, the old servant of his house, 
as governor of the South, under whose trusty guidance 
all went well (BAR, I, 320). The powerful nobles of 
the southern frontier were also zealous in their support 
of the young king. They were a family of bold and 
adventurous barons, living on the island of Elephantine, 
just below the first cataract. The valley at the cataract 
was now called the "Door of the South," and its de- 
fense against the turbulent tribes of northern Nubia 



122 THE OLD KINGDOM 

was placed in their hands, so that the head of the family 
bore the title "Keeper of the Door of the South." 
They made the place so safe that when the king dis- 
patched Uni to the granite quarries at the head of the 
cataract to procure the sarcophagus and the finer 
fittings for his pyramid, the noble was able to accom- 
plish his errand with "only one war-ship," an unprece- 
dented feat (BAR, I, 322). The enterprising young 
monarch then commissioned Uni to establish unbroken 
connection by water with the granite quarries by open- 
ing a succession of five canals through the intervening 
granite barriers of the cataracts; and the faithful noble 
completed this difficult task, besides the building of 
seven boats, launched and laden with great blocks of 
granite for the royal pvramid in onlv one vear (BAR, 
X 324). 

116. Now that the first cataract was passable for 
'Nile boats at high water, a closer control, if not the 
conquest of northern Nubia was quite feasible. Xorth- 
ern Nubia was not of itself a country which the agricul- 
tural Egyptian could utilize. The strip of cultivable 
soil between the Nile and the desert on either hand is 
here so scanty, even in places disappearing altogether, 
that its agricultural value is slight. But the high ridges 
and valleys in the desert on the east contain rich veins 
of gold-bearing quartz, and iron ore is plentiful also, 
although no workings of it have been found there. The 
country was furthermore the only gateway to the regions 
of the south, with which constant trade was now main- 
tained. Besides gold, the Sudan sent down the river 
ostrich feathers, ebony logs, panther skins and ivory; 
while along the same route, from Punt and the coun- 
tries further east, came myrrh, fragrant gums and resins 
and aromatic woods. It was therefore imperative that 



THE DECLINE OF THE OLD KINGDOM 123 

the Pharaoh should command this route. We know 
little of the negro and negroid tribes who inhabited the 
cataract region at this time. Immediately south of the 
Egyptian frontier dwelt the tribes of Wawat, extending 
well toward the second cataract, above which the entire 
region of the upper cataracts was known as Kush, al- 
though the name does not commonly occur on the 
monuments until the Middle Kingdom. In the north- 
ern loop of the huge "S" formed by the course of the 
Nile between the junction of the two Niles and the sec- 
ond cataract, was included the territory of the powerful 
Mazoi, who afterward appeared as auxiliaries in the 
Egyptian army in such numbers that the Egyptian 
word for soldier ultimately became "Matoi," a late 
(Coptic) form of Mazoi. In this northern loop of the 
"S" too, between the Third and the Fourth Cataracts, 
the Nile Valley widens into broad fields, of the greatest 
productivity and enjoying the finest climate. But the 
conquest of this Nubian paradise by the Pharaohs was 
still a thousand years away. Probably on the west of 
the Mazoi was the land of Yam, and between Yam and 
Mazoi on the south and Wawat on the north were dis- 
tributed several tribes, of whom Irthet and Sethut were 
the most important. The last two, together with 
Wawat, were sometimes united under one chief (BAR, 
I, 336). All these tribes were still in the barbarous 
stage. They dwelt in squalid settlements of mud huts 
along the river, or beside wells in the valleys running 
up country from the Nile; and besides the flocks and 
herds which they maintained, they also lived upon the 
scanty produce of their small grain-fields. 

117. Doubtless utilizing his new canal, Mernere now 
devoted special attention to the exploitation of these 
regions. His power was so respected by the chiefs of 



124 THE OLD KINGDOM 

Wawat, Irthet, Mazoi and Yam that they furnished 
me timber for the heavy cargo-boats built by Uni for 
the granite blocks which he took out at the first cata- 
ract. In his fifth year Meniere did what no Pharaoh 
before him had ever done, in so far as we are informed. 
He appeared at the first cataract in person to receive 
the homage of the southern chiefs, and left upon the 
rocks a record of the event, accompanied by a relief 
depicting the Pharaoh leaning upon his staff, while the 
Nubian chiefs bow down in his presence (BAR, I, 324, 
(^_316-318). 

118. Mernere now utilized the sen-ices of the Ele- 
phantine nobles in tightening his hold upon the southern 
chiefs. Harkhuf, who was then lord of Elephantine, 
was also appointed governor of the South, perhaps as the 
successor of Uni, who was now too old for active serivce, 
or had meantime possibly died (BAR, I, 332); although 
the title had now become a mere epithet of honour worn 
by more than one deserving noble at this time. It was 
upon Harkhuf and his relatives, a family of daring 
and adventurous nobles, that the Pharaoh now de- 
pended as leaders of the arduous and dangerous expe- 
ditions which should intimidate the barbarians on his 
frontiers and maintain his prestige and his trade con- 
nections in the distant regions of the south. These 
men are the earliest known explorers of inner Africa 
and the southern Red Sea. At least two of the family 
perished in executing the Pharaoh's hazardous com- 
missions in these far-off lands, a significant hint of the 
hardships and perils to which they were all exposed. 
Besides their princely titulary as lords of Elephantine 
they all bore the title "caravan-conductor, who brings 
the products of the countries to his lord," which they 
proudly display upon their tombs, excavated high in 



THE DECLINE OF THE OLD KINGDOM 125 

the front of the cliffs facing modern Assuan, where they 
still look down upon the island of Elephantine, the one- 
time home of the ancient lords who occupy them. Here 
Harkhuf has recorded how Meniere dispatched him on 
three successive expeditions to distant Yam. These 
dangerous journeys consumed from seven to eight 
months each, and from the last he returned with the 
rich proceeds of his royal trafficing loaded upon three 
hundred asses (BAR, I, 333-336). 

119. These operations for the winning of the extreme 
south were interrupted by the untimely death of Mer- 
nere. He was buried behind Memphis in the granite 
sarcophagus procured for him by Uni, in the pyramid 
for which Uni had likewise laboured so faithfully, and 
here his remains survived, in spite of vandals and tomb- 
robbers, until their removal to the museum at Gizeh in 
1881 — the oldest royal body, interred 4,500 years ago. 
As Mernere reigned only four years and died early in 
his fifth year without issue, the succession devolved 
upon his half-brother, who, although only a child, as- 
cended the throne as Pepi II. His accession and suc- 
cessful rule speak highly for the stability of the family, 
and the faithfulness of the influential nobles attached 
to it. Pepi II was the son of Enekhnes-Merire, one of 
the two sisters of the Thinite nomarch, whom Pepi I 
first had taken as his queens. Her brother Zau, Pepi 
IPs uncle, who was now nomarch of Thinis, was ap- 
pointed by the child-king as vizier, chief judge and 
governor of the residence city. He thus had charge of 
the state during his royal nephew's minority, and as far 
as we can now discern, the government proceeded 
without the slightest disturbance (BAR, I, 344-349). 

120. Pepi II, or in the beginning, of course, his min- 
isters, immediately resumed the designs of the royal 



126 THE OLD KINGDOM 

house in the south. In the young king's second year 
Harkhuf was for the fourth time dispatched to Yam, 
whence he returned bringing a rich pack train and one 
of those uncouth, bandy-legged dwarfs from one of the 
pigmy tribes of inner Africa, so highly prized for the 
dances by which the king's leisure hours were diverted. 
The delighted letter of thanks written bv the child-kins: 
on hearing of the dwarf was recorded by the gratified 
Harkhuf on the front of his tomb and thus preserved 
(BAR, I, 350-354). 

Not all of these hardy lords of Elephantine, who 
adventured their lives in the tropical fastnesses of 
inner Africa in the twenty-sixth century before Christ, 
were as fortunate as Harkhuf. One of them, a gover- 
nor of the South, named Sebni, suddenly received news 
of the death of his father, Prince Mekhu, who perished 
while on an expedition south of Wawat. Thereupon 
Sebni undertook the dangerous mission of recovering 
his father's remains. Returning in safety, he was 
shown every mark of royal favour for his pious deed 
in rescuing his father's body. Splendid gifts and the 
"gold of praise" were showered upon him, and later 
an official communication from the vizier conveyed to 
him a parcel of land (BAR, I, 362-374). 
r 121. A loose sovereignty was now extended over the 
Nubian tribes, and Pepinakht, one of the Elephantine 
lords, was placed in control with the title "governor 
of foreign countries." In this capacity Pepi II twice 
sent him against Wawat and Irthet, where he finally 
captured the two chiefs of these countries themselves, 
besides their two commanders and plentiful spoil from 
their herds. Expeditions were pushed far into the 
upper cataract region, which is once called Kush in 
the Elephantine tombs, and, in general, the preliminary 



THE DECLINE OF THE OLD KINGDOM 127 

work was done which made possible the complete con- 
quest of lower Nubia in the Middle Kingdom. Indeed 
that conquest would now have been begun had not 
internal causes produced the fall of the Sixth Dynasty / 
(BAR, I, 356, 358, 359, 361). JJ 

122. The responsibility for the development of 
Egyptian commerce with the land of Punt and the 
region of the southern Red Sea also fell upon the lords 
of Elephantine. Evidently they had charge of the 
whole south from the Red Sea to the Nile. There was 
no waterway connecting the Nile with the Red Sea 
(cf. p. 159), and these leaders were obliged to build their 
ships at the eastern terminus of the Coptos caravan 
route from the Nile, in one of the Red Sea harbours 
like Koser or Leucos Limen. While so engaged, 
Enenkhet, Pepi IPs naval commander, was fallen upon 
by the Beduin, who slew him and his entire command. 
Pepinakht was immediately dispatched by the Pharaoh 
to rescue the body of the unfortunate noble (BAR, I, 
360). In spite of these risks, the communication with 
Punt was now active and frequent, and at least one 
man had made the voyage probably eleven times (BAR, 
I, 361). It will be seen that the usually accepted seclu- 
sion of the Old Kingdom can no longer be maintained. 
The commerce of the Old Kingdom Pharaohs extended 
from the gate of the Indian Ocean on the south, to the 
forests of Lebanon, and the pre-Mycensean civilization 
of the Greek islands on the north. (See Note xi.) 

123. The tradition of Manetho states that Pepi II 
was six years old when he began to reign, and that he 
continued until the hundredth year, doubtless meaning 
of his life. The list preserved by Eratosthenes avers 
that he ruled a full century. The Turin Papyrus of 
kings supports the first tradition, giving him over 



128 THE OLD KINGDOM 

ninety years, and there is no reason to doubt its truth. 
His was thus the longest reign in history . Several brief 
reigns followed, among them possibly that of the Queen 
Xitocris, to whose name were attached the absurdest 
legends. 

124. But after the death of Pepi II all is uncertain, 
and impenetrable obscurity veils the last days of the 
Sixth Dynasty. When it had ruled something over one 
hundred and fifty years the power of the landed barons 
had become a centrifugal force, which the Pharaohs 
could no longer withstand, and the dissolution of the 
state resulted. The nomes gained their independence, 
the Old Kingdom fell to pieces, and for a time was 
thus resolved into the petty principalities of prehistoric 
times. Nearly a thousand years of unparalleled de- 
velopment since the rise of a united state, thus ended, 
in the twenty-fifth century B.C., in political conditions 
like those which had preceded it. 

125. It had been a thousand years of inexhaustible 
fertility when the youthful strength of a people of 
boundless energy had for the first time found the or- 
ganized form in which it could best express itself. In 
every direction we see the products of a national fresh- 
ness and vigour which are never spent; the union of 
the country under a single guiding hand which had 
quelled internal dissensions and directed the combined 
energies of a great people toward harmonious effort, 
had brought untold blessing. The Pharaohs, to whom 
the unparalleled grandeur of this age was due, not only 
gained a place among the gods in their own time, but 
two thousand years later, at the close of Egypt's his- 
tory as an independent nation, in the Twenty-sixth 
Dynasty, we still find the priests who were appointed 
to maintain their worship. And at the end of her 



THE DECLINE OF THE OLD KINGDOM 129 

career, when the nation had lost all that youthful elas- 
ticity and creative energy which so abounded in the Old 
Kingdom, the sole effort of her priests and wise men 
was to restore the unsullied religion, life and govern- 
ment which in their fond imagination had existed in 
the Old Kingdom, as they looked wistfully back upon it 
across the millennia. To us it has left the imposing 
line of temples, tombs and pyramids, stretching for 
many miles along the margin of the western desert, the 
most eloquent witnesses to the fine intelligence and 
Titanic energies of the men who made the Old Kingdom 
what it was; not alone achieving these wonders of 
mechanics and internal organization, but building the 
earliest known sea-going ships and exploring unknown 
waters, or pushing their commercial enterprises far up 
the Nile into inner Africa. In plastic art they had 
reached the highest achievement; in architecture their 
tireless genius had created the column and originated 
the colonnade; in government they had elaborated an 
enlightened and highly developed state, with a large 
body of just law; in religion they were already dimly 
conscious of a judgment in the hereafter, and they were 
thus the first men whose ethical intuitions made happi- 
ness in the future life dependent upon character. 
Everywhere their unspent energies unfolded in a rich 
and manifold culture which left the world such a price- 
less heritage as no nation had yet bequeathed it. It 
now remains to be seen, as we stand at the close of this 
remarkable age, whether the conflict of local with cen- 
tralized authority shall exhaust the elemental strength 
of this ancient people; or whether such a reconciliation 
can be effected as will again produce harmony and 
union, permitting the continuance of the marvellous 
development of which we have witnessed the first fruits. 



PART III 

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM 
THE FEUDAL AGE 



VIII 

THE DECLINE OF THE NORTH AND THE RISE OF 
THEBES 

126. The internal struggle which caused the fall of 
the Old Kingdom developed at last into a convulsion, 
in which the destructive forces were for a time com- 
pletely triumphant. Exactly when and by whom the 
ruin was wrought is not now determinable, but the 
magnificent mortuary works of the greatest of the Old 
Kingdom monarchs fell victims to a carnival of destruc- 
tion in which many of them were annihilated. The 
temples were not merely pillaged and violated, but 
their finest works of art were subjected to systematic 
and determined vandalism, which shattered the splen- 
did granite and diorite statues of the kings into bits, 
or hurled them into the well in the monumental gate 
of the pyramid-causeway. Thus the foes of the old 
regime wreaked vengeance upon those who had repre- 
sented and upheld it. The nation was totally disor- 
ganized. From the scanty notes of Manetho it would 
appear that an oligarchy, possibly representing an at- 
tempt of the nobles to set up their joint rule, assumed 
control for a brief time at Memphis. Manetho calls 
them the Seventh Dynasty. He follows them with an 
Eighth Dynasty of Memphite kings, who are but the 
lingering shadow of ancient Memphite power. Their 
names as preserved in the Abydos list show that they 

133 



134 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

regarded the Sixth Dynasty as their ancestors; but 
none of their pyramids has ever been found, nor have 
we been able to date any tombs of the local nobility in 
this dark age. In the mines and quarries of Sinai and 
Hammamat, where records of every prosperous line of 
kings proclaim their power, not a trace of these ephem- 
eral Pharaohs can be found. A generation after the 
fall of the Sixth Dynasty a family of Heracleopolitan 
nomarchs wrested the crown from the weak Mem- 
phites of the Eighth Dynasty, who may have lingered 
on, claiming royal honours for nearly another century. 

127. Some degree of order was finally restored by 
the triumph of the nomarchs of Heracleopolis. This 
city, just south of the Fayum, had been the seat of a 
temple and cult of Horus from the earliest dynastic 
times. Akhthoes, who, according to Manetho, was the 
founder of the new dynasty, must have taken grim 
vengeance on his enemies, for all that Manetho knows 
of him is that he was the most violent of all the kings of 
the time, and that, having been seized with madness, he 
was slain by a crocodile. The new house is known 
to Manetho as the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties, but its 
kings were still too feeble to leave any enduring monu- 
ments; neither have any records contemporary with 
the family survived except during the last three genera- 
tions, when the powerful nomarchs of Siut were able to 
excavate cliff-tombs in which they fortunately left 
records of the active and successful career of their 
family, furnishing us a hint of the disorganized state 
from which the country had been rescued (BAR, I, 
391-414). 

128. These Siut nomarchs enjoyed the most intimate 
relations with the royal house at Heracleopolis, and 
we see them digging canals, reducing taxation, reaping- 



THE RISE OF THEBES 135 

rich harvests, maintaining large herds, while there were 
always in readiness a body of troops and a fleet. Such 
was the wealth and power of these Siut nobles that 
they soon became a buffer state on the south of ines- 
timable value to the house of Heracleopolis, and one 
of them was made military "commander of Middle 
Egypt" (BAR, I, 410). 

129. Meantime among the nobles of the South a 
similar powerful family of nomarchs was slowly rising 
Into notice. Some four hundred and forty miles above 
Memphis, and less than one hundred and forty miles 
below the first cataract, along the stretch of Nile about 
forty miles above the great bend, where the river ap- 
proaches most closely to the Red Sea before turning 
abruptly away from it, the scanty margin between 
river and cliffs expands into a broad and fruitful plain, 
in the midst of which now lie the mightiest ruins of 
ancient civilization to be found anywhere in the world. 
They are the wreck of Thebes, the world's first great 
monumental city. At this time it was an obscure 
provincial town and the neighbouring Hermonthis 
was the seat of a family of nomarchs, the Intefs and 
Mentuhoteps. Toward the close of the Heracleopolitan 
supremacy, Thebes had gained the lead in the South, 
and its nomarch, Intef, was " keeper of the Door of the 
South." His successors were finally able to detach the 
whole south as far northward as his own Theban nome, 
and organized an independent kingdom, with Thebes 
at its head. This Intef was ever after recognized as 
the ancestor of the Theban line, and the monarchs of 
the Middle Kingdom set up his statue in the temple at 
Thebes among those of their royal predecessors who 
were worshipped there (BAR, I, 420, 419). 

130. At this juncture, the unshaken fidelity of the 



136 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

Siut princes was the salvation of the house of Hera- 
cleopolis. We can now vaguely discern a protracted 
struggle, in which they bore the brunt, continuing with 
varying fortune, as the Intefs pushed northward from 
Thebes, till Wahenekh-Intef gained Abydos and fixed 
his northern boundary there. His southern frontier 
was at the cataract. His son and successor, another 
Intef, maintained this southern kingdom till the acces- 
sion of a line of five Mentuhoteps, probably a col- 
lateral branch of the Theban family, who established 
the universal supremacy of Thebes, and the sovereignty 
of Egypt passed from the north to the south. Heracle- 
opolis disappears, after we have gained but a fleeting 
glimpse of her kings in the tombs of the Siut lords 
(BAR, I, 396, 398, 403, 1. 23; 401). We then find 
the last three Mentuhoteps controlling all Egypt, and 
reviving building operations, for which the first of 
them (Nibtowere) dispatched a great expedition to 
Hammamat for the necessary stone. The second 
(Nibhepetre) erected a terraced mortuary temple 
against the cliffs of Der el-Bahri, now the oldest sur- 
viving building at Thebes. He even resumed the ab- 
sorption of Nubia, and sent a fleet against Wawat. 
He was later regarded as the great founder of the 
dynasty. 

131. After his reign of half a century Senekhkere- 
Mentuhotep continued to hold the undivided sover- 
eignty of all Egypt. This Mentuhotep was able to 
resume the distant foreign enterprises of the Pharaohs 
for the first time since the Sixth Dynasty, five hundred 
years before. He dispatched his chief treasurer, Henu, 
to the Red Sea by the Hammamat road with a follow- 
ing of three thousand men. Such was the efficiency 
of his organization that each man received two jars 



THE RISE OF THEBES 137 

of water and twenty small biscuit-like loaves daily, 
involving the issuance of six thousand jars of water 
and sixty thousand such loaves by the commissary 
every day during the desert march and the stay in 
the quarries of Hammamat. Everything possible was 
done to make the desert route thither safe and pass- 
able. Henu dug fifteen wells and cisterns, and set- 
tlements of colonists were afterward established at 
the watering stations. Arriving at the Red Sea end 
of the route, Henu built a ship which he dispatched 
to Punt, while he himself returned by way of Ham- 
mamat, where he secured and brought back with 
him fine blocks for the statues in the royal tem- 
ples. In such efficient organization we discern slowly 
emerging from centuries of anarchy and civil strife the 
great state which we shall soon meet as the Middle 
Kingdom. After a rule of a little over one hundred 
and sixty years the Eleventh Dynasty was brought to a 
close with the reign of Senekhkere-Mentuhotep, about 
2000 B. c. They left few monuments; their modest 
pyramids of sun-dried brick on the western plain of 
Thebes were in a perfect state of preservation a thou- 
sand years later, but they barely survived into modern 
times, and their vanishing remains were excavated by 
Mariette (Note I; BAR, I, 419-459; iv, 514). 

132. It was not without hostilities that the last Men- 
tuhotep gave way before the new line. With the 
advent of its founder, the unknown Theban, Amenem- 
het, we hear of a campaign on the Nile with a fleet of 
twenty ships of cedar, followed by the expulsion of 
some unknown enemy from Egypt. The development 
of local power among the landed nobility which had 
become so evident in the Fifth Dynasty had now 
reached its logical issue; Amenemhet could only ac- 



13S THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

cept the situation and deal with it as best he might. 
He now achieved the conquest of the country and its 
reorganization only by skilfully employing in his cause 
those noble families whom he could win by favour and 
fair promises. We see him rewarding Khnumhotep, 
one of his noble partisans, w r ith the gift of the Oryx- 
nome, and personally going about determining the just 
boundaries and erecting landmarks. To suppress 
these landed barons entirely was impossible. The ut- 
most that the monarch could now accomplish was the 
appointment in the nomes of nobles favourably in- 
clined toward his house. The state which the un- 
precedented vigour and skill of this great statesman 
finally succeeded in thus erecting, again furnished 
Egypt with the stable organization which enabled her 
about 2000 b. c. to enter upon her second great period 
of productive development, the Middle Kingdom (BAR, 
I, 465, 688 /., 625, 619-639). 



IX 



THE MIDDLE KINGDOM OR THE FEUDAL AGE: STATE, 
SOCIETY AND RELIGION 

133. It had been but natural that the kings of the 
Eleventh Dynasty should reside at Thebes, where the 
founders of the family had lived during the long war 
for the conquest of the North. But Amenemhet was 
evidently unable to continue this tradition. All the 
kings of Egypt, since the passing of the Thinites a 
thousand years before, had lived in the North, except 
the Eleventh Dynasty which he had supplanted. The 
spot which he selected was on the west side of the 
river some miles south of Memphis, near the place 
now called Lisht, where the ruined pyramid of Amen- 
emhet has been discovered. From this stronghold, 
bearing the significant name Ithtowe, "Captor of the 
Two Lands," Amenemhet swayed the destinies of a 
state which required all the skill and political sagacity 
of a line of unusually strong rulers in order to maintain 
the prestige of the royal house. 

The nation was made up of an aggregation of small 
states or petty princedoms, the lords of which owed the 
Pharaoh their loyalty, but they were not his officials 
or his servants. Some of these local nobles were 
"great lords" or nomarchs, ruling a whole nome; 
others were only "counts" of a smaller domain with its 
fortified town. It was thus a feudal state, not essen- 

139 



140 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

tiallv different from that of later Europe, which Amen- 
emhet had organized. We are dependent for our 
knowledge of these barons upon their surviving tombs 
and mortuary monuments. All such remains in the 
Delta have perished, so that we can speak with cer- 
tainty only of the conditions in the South, and even 
here it is only in Middle Egypt that we are adequately 
informed. 

134. Through long generations of possession the 
nomarch had now become a miniature Pharaoh in his 
little realm. On a less sumptuous scale his residence 
was surrounded by a personnel not unlike that of the 
Pharaonic court and harem; while his government 
demanded a chief treasurer, a court of justice, with 
offices, scribes, and functionaries, and all the essential 
machinery of government which we find at the royal 
residence. The nomarch collected the revenues of his 
domain, was high priest or head of the sacerdotal 
organization, and commanded the militia of his realm 
which was permanently organized. His power was 
thus considerable. Such lords were able to build 
temples, erect public buildings, and set up massive and 
pretentious monuments in their principal towns (BAR, 
I, 520 /.; 466, note c; 694-706, 403, 637 and note a.) 
The nomarch devoted himself to the interests of his 
people, and was concerned to leave to posterity a 
reputation as a merciful and beneficent ruler. After 
making all due allowance for a natural desire to record 
the most favourable aspects of his government, it is evi- 
dent that the paternal character of the nomarch's local 
and personal rule, in a community of limited numbers, 
with which he was acquainted by almost daily contact, 
had proved an untold blessing to the country and 
population at large (BAR, I, 638, 408, 407, 459, 523). 



STATE, SOCIETY AND RELIGION 141 

135. The domains over which the nomarch thus 
ruled were not all his unqualified possessions. His 
wealth consisted of lands and revenues of two classes: 
the "paternal estate," received from his ancestors and 
entailed in his line; and the "count's estate" (BAR, 
I, 536), over which the dead hand had no control; it 
was conveyed as a fief by the Pharaoh anew at the 
nomarch's death. It was this fact which to some ex- 
tent enabled the Pharaoh to control the feudatories and 
to secure the appointment of partisans of his house 
throughout the country. Nevertheless he could not 
ignore the natural line of succession, which was through 
the eldest daughter; and she might even rule the 
domain after the death of her father until her son 
was old enough to assume its government (BAR, I, 
414). The history of the lords of Benihasan through 
four generations, which their tomb records, enable us to 
follow, shows that the Pharaoh could not overlook 
the claims of the heir of a powerful family, and the 
deference which he showed them evidently limited 
the control which he might exert over a less formidable 
dynasty of nobles (BAR, I, 619 fi.). 

136. To what extent these lords felt the restraint of 
the royal hand in their government and administration 
it is not now possible to determine. A royal commis- 
sioner, whose duty it was to look to the interests of the 
Pharaoh, seems to have resided in the nome, and there 
were "overseers of the crown-possessions" (probably 
under him), in charge of the royal herds in each nome; 
but the nomarch himself was the medium through 
whom all revenues from the nome were conveyed to 
the treasury (BAR, I, 522). "All the imposts of the 
king's house passed through my hand," says Ameni of 
the Oryx nome. The treasury was the organ of the 



142 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

central government, which gave administrative cohe- 
sion to the otherwise loose aggregation of nomarchies. 
It had its income-paying property in all the nomes. 
Some of this property was administered by government 
overseers, while to a large extent it was entrusted to 
the noble, probably as part of the "count's estate" 
BAR, I, 522, and note a). We have no means of even 
conjecturing the amount or proportion of property 
held by the crown in the nomes and "count's estates," 
but it is evident that the claims of these powerful feu- 
datories must have seriously curtailed the traditional 
revenues of the Pharaoh. He no longer had the re- 
sources of the country at his unconditional disposal as 
in the Old Kingdom. Other resources of the treasury 
were, however, now available, and, if not entirely new, 
were henceforth more energetically exploited. Besides 
his internal revenues, including the tribute of the nomes 
and the Residence, the Pharaoh received a regular 
income from the gold-mines of Xubia, and those on 
the Coptos road to the Red Sea. The traffic with Punt 
and the southern coasts of the Red Sea seems to have 
been the exclusive prerogative of the crown, and must 
have brought in a considerable return; while the mines 
and quarries of Sinai, and perhaps also the quarries of 
Hammamat, had also been developed as a regular 
source of profit. The conquest of lower Xubia, and 
now and then a plundering expedition into Syria- 
Palestine, also furnished not unwelcome contributions 
to the treasury. 

137. The central organization and the chief func- 
tionaries of the treasury were the same as in the Old 
Kingdom, and the vigorous administration of the time 
is evident in the frequent records of these active officials, 
showing that notwithstanding their rank, they often 



STATE, SOCIETY AND RELIGION 143 

personally superintended the king's interests in Sinai, 
Hammamat, or on the shores of the Red Sea at the 
terminus of the Coptos road. It is evident, however, 
that the treasury had become a more highly developed 
organ since the Old Kingdom. The army of subor- 
dinates, stewards, overseers and scribes filling the 
offices under the heads of sub-departments was obvi- 
ously larger than before. They began to display an 
array of titles, of which many successive ranks, here- 
tofore unknown, were being gradually differentiated. 
Such condition made possible the rise of an official 
middle class. 

138. Justice, as in the Old Kingdom, was still dis- 
pensed by the administrative officials (BAR, I, 618). 
The six " Great Houses," or courts of justice, with the 
vizier at their head, sat in Ithtowe (SEI, I, 100). There 
was, besides, a "House of Thirty," which evidently pos- 
sessed judicial functions, and was also presided over 
by the vizier, but its relation to the six " Great Houses" 
is not clear. There was now more than one " Southern 
Ten," and "Magnates of the Southern Tens" were 
frequently entrusted with various executive and ad- 
ministrative commissions by the king. The law which 
they administered, while it has not survived, had cer- 
tainly attained a high devlopment, and was capable of 
the . finest distinctions. A nomarch at Siut makes a 
contract between himself as count, and himself as high 
priest in the temple of his city, showing the closest 
differentiation of the rights which he possessed in these 
two different capacities (BAR, I, 568 Jf.). 

139. The scanty records of the time throw but little 
light upon the other organs of government, like the 
administration of lands, the system of irrigation and 
the like. The country was divided into two adminis- 



144 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

trative districts of the South and the North, and the 
"Magnates of the Southern Tens" served in both dis- 
triets, showing: that thev were not confined to the South 
alone. The office of the governor of the South had 
disappeared, and already before the close of the Old 
Kingdom the title had become merely an honourable 
predicate, if used at all. An elaborate system of 
registration was in force. Even* head of a familv was 
enrolled as soon as he had established an independent 
household, with all the members belonging to it, in- 
cluding serfs and slaves (GKP, pi. ix, /., pp. 19-29). 
The office of the vizier was the central archives of the 
government as before, and all records of the land- 
administration with census and tax registration were 
filed in his bureaus. His powers were the same as in 
the Old Kingdom, and that he might prove dangerous 
to the crown is evident in the history of Amenemhet's I 
probable rise from the viziership. 

140. It was therefore now more necessary than ever 
that the machinery of government should be in the 
hands of men of unquestioned loyalty. Young men 
were brought up in the circle of the king's house that 
they might grow up in attachment to it. Discreet 
conduct toward the Pharaoh was the condition of a 
career, and the wise praise him who knows how to be 
silent in the king's service (BAR, I, 665, 514, 532, 
748). 

141. Under such conditions the Pharaoh could not 
but surround himself with the necessary power to 
enforce his will when obliged to do so. A class of 
military "attendants," or, literally, "'followers of his 
majesty" therefore arose, the first professional soldiers 
of whom we have any knowledge in ancient Egypt. In 
companies of a hundred men each they garrisoned the 



STATE, SOCIETY AND RELIGION 145 

palace and the strongholds of the royal house from 
Nubia to the Asiatic frontier. They formed at least 
the nucleus of a standing army, although it is evident 
that they were not as yet in sufficient numbers to be 
dignified by this term. They were probably of the 
same social class as the feudatory militia, forming the 
great mass of the army employed by the Pharaoh at 
this time. This feudatory militia was composed of 
the free born citizens of the middle class on the estate 
of the nomarch, who at the king's summons placed 
himself at their head and led them in the wars of his 
liege-lord. The army in time of war was therefore 
made up of contingents furnished and commanded by 
the feudatories. In peace they were also frequently 
drawn upon to furnish the intelligent power applied 
to the transportation of great monuments or employed 
in the execution of public works. All free citizens, 
whether priests or not, were organized and enrolled in 
"generations," a term designating the different classes 
of youth, who were to become successively liable to 
draught for military or public service. As in the Old 
Kingdom, war continues to be little more than a series 
of loosely organized predatory expeditions, the rec- 
ords of which clearly display the still unwarlike char- 
acter of the Egyptian. 

142. The detachment of the nobles from the court 
since the Sixth Dynasty had resulted in the rise of a 
provincial society, of which we gain glimpses especially 
at Elephantine, Bersheh, Benihasan and Siut, where 
the tombs of the nomarchs are still preserved, and at 
Abydos, where all other classes now desired to be 
buried or to erect a memorial stone. The life of the 
nobles therefore no longer centred in the court, and the 
aristocracy of the time, being scattered throughout the 



146 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

country, took on local forms. The nomarch, with his 
large family circle, his social pleasures, his hunting and 
his sports, is an interesting and picturesque figure of 
the country nobleman, with whom we would gladly 
tarry if space permitted. Characteristic of this age is 
the prominence of the middle class. To some extent 
this prominence is due to the fact that a tomb, a tomb- 
stone and mortuary equipment have become a neces- 
sity also for a large proportion of this class, who felt no 
such necessity and left no such memorial of their 
existence in the Old Kingdom. In the cemetery at 
Abydos, among nearly eight hundred men of the time 
having tombstones there, one in four bore no title 
either of office or of rank (CC, Nos. 20001-20780). 
Some of these men were tradesmen, some land-owners, 
others artisans and artificers; but among them were 
men of wealth and luxury. In the Art Institute at 
Chicago there is a fine coffin belonging to such an un- 
titled citizen, which he had made of costly cedar im- 
ported from Lebanon. Of the people bearing titles of 
office on these Middle Kingdom tombstones of Abydos 
the vast majority were small office-holders, displaying 
no title of rank and undoubtedly belonging to this 
same middle class. The government service now 
offered a career to the youth of this station in life. 
The inheritance by the son of his father's office, already 
not uncommon in the Old Kingdom, was now general. 
Such a custom must necessarily lead to the formation 
of an official middle class. Their ability to read and 
write also raised them above those of their own social 
station who were illiterate, and from this time on we 
shall find the scribe constantly glorying in his knowledge 
and despising all other callings (P Sail., II). For the 
first time therefore we now discern a prosperous and 



STATE, SOCIETY AND RELIGION 147 

often well-to-do middle class in the provinces, some- 
times owning their own slaves and lands and bringing 
their offerings of first fruits to the temple of the town 
as did the nomarch himself (BAR, I, 536). At the 
bottom of the social scale were the unnamed serfs, the 
toiling millions who produced the agricultural wealth 
of the land — the despised class whose labour neverthe- 
less formed the basis of the economic life of the nation. 
In the nomes they were also taught handicrafts, and we 
see them depicted in the tombs at Benihasan and else- 
where engaged in the production of all sorts of handi- 
work. Whether their output was solely for the use of 
the nomarch's estates or also on a large scale for traffic 
in the markets with the middle class throughout the 
country, is entirely uncertain. 

143. In no element of their life are there clearer evi- 
dences of change and development than in the religion 
of the Middle Kingdom Egyptians. Here again we are 
in a new age. The official supremacy of Re, so marked 
since the rise of the Fifth Dynasty, was now complete. 
The other priesthoods, desirous of securing for their 
own, perhaps purely local deity, a share of the sun- 
god's glory, gradually discovered that their god was 
but a form and name of Re; and some of them went 
so far that their theologizing found practical expres- 
sion in the god's name. Thus, for example, Amon, 
hitherto an obscure local god of Thebes, who had at- 
tained some prominence by the political rise of the city, 
was from now on a solar-god, and was commonly called 
by his priests Amon-Re. There were in this move- 
ment the beginnings of a tendency toward a pantheistic 
solar monotheism, which we shall yet trace to its re- 
markable culmination. While the temples had prob- 
ably somewhat increased in size, the official cult was 



14S THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

not materially altered, and there was still no large 
class of priests (AZ, 1900, 94). 

144. The triumph of Re was largely due to his po- 
litical prominence; but that of Osiris, which is now 
equally evident, had no connection with the state, but 
was a purely popular victory. That his priests con- 
tributed to his triumph by persistent propaganda is 
nevertheless probable, but their field of operations will 
have been among the people. At Abydos the Osiris- 
myth was wrought into a series of dramatical presenta- 
tions in which the chief incidents of the god's life, 
death and final triumph were annually enacted before 
the people by the priests. Indeed in the presentation 
of some portions of it the people were permitted to 
participate; and this ancient passion play was un- 
questionably as impressive in the eyes of the multitude 
as were the miracle and passion plays of the Christian 
age (BAR, I, 662, 669; SU, ix, 2). Among the inci- 
dents enacted was the procession bearing the god's 
body to his tomb for burial, a custom which finally 
resulted in identifying as the original tomb of Osiris 
the place on the desert behind Abydos, which in this 
scene served as the tomb. Thus the tomb of King Zer 
of the First Dynasty, who had ruled over a thousand 
years before, was in the Middle Kingdom already re- 
garded as that of Osiris (ibid.). As veneration for the 
spot increased, it became a veritable holy sepulchre, 
and Abydos gained a sanctity possessed by no other 
place in Egypt. All this wrought powerfully upon the 
people; they came in pilgrimage to the place, and the 
ancient tomb of Zer was buried deep beneath a moun- 
tain of jars containing the votive offerings which they 
brought. If possible the Egyptian was now buried at 
Abydos; from the vizier himself down to the humblest 



STATE, SOCIETY AND RELIGION 149 

cobbler we find them crowding this most sacred ceme- 
tery of Egypt. But the masses to whom this was im- 
possible erected memorial tablets and small false or 
model tombs there for themselves and their relatives, 
calling upon the god in prayer and praise to remember 
them in the hereafter. Royal officials and emissaries 
of the government, whose business brought them to the 
city, failed not to improve the opportunity to erect such 
a tablet, and the date and character of their commis- 
sions which they sometimes add furnish us with in- 
valuable historical facts, of which we should otherwise 
never have gained any knowledge (BAR, 1, 671-672). 
145. As the destiny of the dead became more and 
more identified with that of Osiris, the judgment which 
he had been obliged to undergo was supposed to await 
also all who departed to his realms. The heart of the 
deceased is weighed over against a feather, the symbol 
of truth, while he pleads "not guilty" to forty-two 
different sins. These sins are such as to show that the 
ethical standard was high; moreover in this judgment 
the Egyptian introduced for the first time in the history 
of man the fully developed idea that the future destiny 
of the dead must be dependent entirely upon the ethical 
quality of the earthly life, the idea of future account- 
ability, of which we found the first traces in the Old 
Kingdom. The whole conception is notable; for a 
thousand years or more after this no such idea was 
known among other peoples, and in Babylonia and 
Israel good and bad alike descended together at death 
into gloomy Sheol, where no distinction was made be- 
tween them. The blessed dead, who successfully sus- 
tained the judgment each received the predicate "true 
of speech," a term which was interpreted as meaning 
"triumphant," and from now on so employed. Every 



150 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

deceased person, when spoken of by the living, received 
this predicate; it was always written after the names 
of the dead, and finally also after those of the living in 
anticipation of their happy destiny. 

146. In one important respect the beliefs of the 
Egyptian regarding his future state have suffered a 
striking change. He is now beset with innumerable 
dangers in the next world. Besides the serpents com- 
mon in the Pyramid Texts, the most uncanny foes and 
the most terrifying dangers await him. Against all 
these the deceased must now be forewarned and fore- 
armed, and hence a mass of magical formularies has 
arisen, by the proper utterance of which the dead may 
overcome all these foes and live in triumph and secur- 
ity. These charms, with many others securing many 
blessings to the dead, were written for the use of the 
deceased on the inside of his coffin, and although no 
canonical selection of these texts yet existed, they 
formed the nucleus of what afterward became the Book 
of the Dead or, as the Egyptian later called it, "The 
Chapters of Going Forth by Day," in reference to their 
great function of enabling the dead to leave the tomb. 
It will be seen that in this class of literature there was 
offered to an unscrupulous priesthood an opportunity 
for gain, of which in later centuries they did not fail to 
take advantage. Already they attempted what might 
be termed a " guide-book " of the hereafter, a geography 
of the other world, with a map of the two ways along 
which the dead might journey. This "Book of the 
Two Ways" was probably composed for no other pur- 
pose than for gain; and the tendency of which it is an 
evidence 1 will meet us in future centuries as the most 
baleful influence of Egyptian life and religion. In the 
material equipment of the dead, the mastaba, while it 



STATE, SOCIETY AND RELIGION 151 

has not entirely disappeared, has largely been displaced 
by the excavated cliff-tomb, already found so practical 
and convenient by the nobles of Upper Egypt in the 
Old Kingdom. The kings, however, continue to build 
pyramids, as we shall see. 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 

147. The difficult and delicate task of reorganization 
doubtless consumed a large part of Amenemhet Vs 
reign, but when it was once thoroughly accomplished 
his house was able to ride the country for over two 
centuries. It is probable that at no other time in the 
history of Egypt did the land enjoy such widespread 
and bountiful prosperity as now ensued. 

14S. In the midst of all this, when Amenemhet fan- 
cied that he had firmly established himself and his line 
upon the throne of the land which owed him so much, 
a foul conspiracy to assassinate him was conceived 
among the official members of his household. The 
palace halls rang with the clash of arms, and the king's 
life was in danger, though he finally escaped (BAH, I, 
479 /.). In the twentieth year of his reign (19S0 B.C.), 
probably no long time after this incident, and doubtless 
influenced by it, Amenemhet appointed his son Sesos- 
tris, the first of the name, to share the throne as co- 
regent with him. It was during this coregericy that 
Egypt again resumed a policy of expansion. In spite 
of the achievements of the Sixth Dynasty in the South 
the country below the first cataract as far north as Edfu 
was still reckoned as belonging to Nubia and still bore 
the name Tapedet, "Bow-Land," usually applied to 
Xubia (BAR, I, 500, 1. 4). In the twenty-ninth year 

152 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 153 

of the old king the Egyptian forces penetrated Wawat 
to Korusko, the termination of the desert route, cutting 
off the great westward bend of the Nile, and captured 
prisoners among the Mazoi in the country beyond. We 
can hardly doubt that the young Sesostris was the leader 
of this expedition. Work was also resumed in the 
quarries of Hammamat, while in the North " the Trog- 
lodytes, the Asiatics and Sand-dwellers" on the east of 
the Delta were punished. This eastern frontier was 
strengthened at the eastern terminus of the Wady 
Tumilat by a fortification, perhaps that already in 
existence under the Old Kingdom Pharaohs; and a 
garrison, with its sentinels constantly upon the watch 
towers, was stationed there. Thus in North and South 
alike an aggressive policy was maintained, the frontiers 
made safe and the foreign connections of the kingdom 
carefully regarded (BAR, I, 500, 1. 4; 472 /., 466-^68, 
469-471, 483, 1. 3; 493, 11. 17-19, 474-483). 

149. As the old king felt his end approaching, he 
delivered to his son brief instructions embodying the 
ripe wisdom which he had accumulated during his long 
career. The modern reader may clearly discern in 
these utterances the bitterness with which the attempt 
upon his life by his own immediate circle had imbued 
the aged Amenemhet (BAR, I, 474-483). It was 
probably not long after this that Sesostris was dis- 
patched at the head of an army to chastise the Libyans 
on the western frontier. During the absence of the 
prince on this campaign in 1970 B.C. Amenemhet 
died, after a reign of thirty years (BAR, I, 487 ft.). 

150. The achievements of the house of Amenemhet 
outside of the limits of Egypt: in Nubia, Hammamat 
and Sinai, have left more adequate records in these 
regions than their beneficent and prosperous rule in 



154 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

Egypt itself; and the progress of the dynasty, at least 
in inscribed records, can be more clearly traced abroad 
than at home. It will therefore be easier to follow the 
foreign enterprises of the dynasty before we dwell upon 
their achievements at home. We follow the feudatories 
like Ameni, later nomarch of the Oryx-nome, under the 
leadership of their liege, Sesostris I, as they penetrate 
above the second cataract into the great region known 
as Kush, which now for the first time becomes common 
in the monumental records. The campaign is notable 
as the first in a foreign country ever led by the Pharaoh 
personally, in so far as we know (BAR, I, 519). Eight 
years after the death of his father, Sesostris I dispatched 
Mentuhotep, one of his commanders, on a further cam- 
paign into Kush. Mentuhotep left a large stela at 
Wady Haifa, just below the first cataract, recording his 
triumph and giving us the first list of conquered foreign 
districts and towns which we possess. Mentuhotep 
made himself so prominent on his triumphant stela 
that his figure was erased and that of a god placed over 
it. All appearances would indicate that the successful 
commander was deposed and disgraced (BAR, I, 510- 
514). Nubian gold now began to flow into the treasury, 
and Ameni of the Oryx-nome was dispatched to Nubia 
at the head of four hundred troops of his nome to bring 
back the output. The king improved the occasion to 
send with Ameni the young crown prince, who after- 
wards became Amenemhet II, in order that he might 
familiarize himself with the region where he should one 
day be called upon to continue his father's enterprises 
(BAR, I, 520). Similarly the gold country on the east 
of Coptos was now exploited, and the faithful Ameni 
was entrusted with the mission of convoying it. It is 
under the energetic Sesostris I also, that we first 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 155 

hear of intercourse with the oases (BAR, I, 521, 524— 
528). 

151. It was doubtless the realization of the evident 
advantage which he had enjoyed by ten years' associa- 
tion with his father as coregent that induced Sesostris I 
to appoint his own son in the same way. When he 
died in 1935 b. c, after a reign of thirty-five years, his 
son, Amenemhet II had already been coregent for three 
years, and assumed the sole authority without diffi- 
culty. This policy was also continued by Amenemhet 
II, and his son Sesostris II had also ruled three years in 
conjunction with his father at the latter' s death (BAR, 
I, 460). For fifty years under these two kings in suc- 
cession the nation enjoyed unabated prosperity. The 
mines of Sinai were reopened, and the traffic with Punt 
resumed by Amenemhet II was continued under his 
son. The distant shores of Punt gradually became 
more familiar to Egyptian folk, and a popular tale 
narrates the marvellous adventures of a shipwrecked 
seaman in these waters (AZ, 43). The Nubian gold- 
mines continued to be a source of wealth to the royal 
house, and Egyptian interests in Nubia were protected 
by fortresses in Wawat, garrisoned and subject to- 
periodical inspection. With the death of Sesostris II 
in 1887 b. c, all was ripe for the complete and thorough 
conquest of the two hundred miles of Nile valley that 
lie between the first and second cataracts (BAR, I, 602, 
604-606, 616-618). 

152. Immediately on his accession Sesostris III took 
the preliminary step toward the completion of the great 
task in Nubia, viz., the establishment of unbroken con- 
nection by water with the country above the first 
cataract. What had become of the canal made by 
Uni, six hundred years before, we cannot say (see p. 122). 



156 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

At the most difficult point in the granite barrier the 
engineers of Sesostris III cut a channel through the 
rock, and many a war-galley of the Pharaoh must have 
been drawn up through it during the early campaigns 
of this king, of which we unfortunately have no records 
(BAR, I, 642-644). By the eighth year the subjuga- 
tion of the country had made such progress that Sesos- 
tris III was able to select a favourable strategic position 
as his frontier at modern Kummeh and Semneh, situ- 
ated on opposite banks of the river in the heart of the 
second cataract country forty miles above the lower 
end. This point he formally declared to be the south- 
ern boundary of his kingdom. He erected on each side 
of the river a stela marking the boundary-line, and 
one of these two important landmarks has survived 
(BAR, I, 651 /.). It was of course impossible to main- 
tain the new frontier without a constant display of 
force. Sesostris III therefore erected a strong fortress 
on each side of the river at this point, each with its 
temple and barracks within the enclosure. These two 
strongholds of Kummeh and Semneh still survive, and 
although in a state of ruin, they show remarkable skill 
in the selection of the site and unexpected knowledge 
of the art of constructing effective defenses. 

153. Later disturbances among the turbulent Nubian 
tribes south of the new frontier three times recalled the 
king into Nubia, the last time in his nineteenth year 
(BAR, I, 653 /., 661). Although Egypt did not claim 
sovereignty in Kush, the country above the second 
cataract, it was nevertheless necessary for the Pharaoh 
to protect the trade-routes leading through it to his 
new frontier, from the extreme south — routes along 
which the products of the Sudan were now constantly 
passing into Egypt. The declaration of the frontier 



UJ 

rr 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 157 

on the boundary-stela permitted the passage of any 
egro who came to trade, or bore a matter of business 
rom some southern chief (BAR, I, 652). From now 
on it was more often south of his frontier that the 
Pharaoh was obliged to appear in force than in the 
country between the first two cataracts. Moreover, 
there was rich plunder to be had on these campaigns 
over the border, so that the maintenance of the southern 
trade-routes was not without its compensations. Sesos- 
tris III was able to send his chief treasurer, Ikhernofret, 
to restore the cultus image of Osiris at Abydos with 
gold captured in Kush (BAR, I, 665). 

154. In the campaign of the sixteenth year he re- 
newed his declaration of the southern boundary at 
Semneh, erecting a stela in the temple there bearing his 
second proclamation of the place of the frontier, and 
exhorting his descendants to maintain it where he had 
established it. He also erected on the boundary a 
statue of himself, as if to awe the natives of the region 
by his very presence (BAR, I, 653-660). At the same 
time he strengthened the frontier defenses by three more 
fortresses in the vicinity. His vigorous policy so 
thoroughly established the supremacy of the Pharaoh 
in the newly won possessions that the Empire regarded 
him as the real conqueror of the region. He was wor- 
shipped already in the Eighteenth Dynasty as the god 
of the land, while his feast of victory was still celebrated 
and his calendar of offerings renewed at the same time 
(BAR, II, 167 ff.). Thus the gradual progress of the 
Pharaohs southward, which had begun in prehistoric 
times at El Kab (Nekhen) and had absorbed the first 
cataract by the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty, had 
now reached the second cataract, and had added two 
hundred miles of the Nile valley to the kingdom. 



158 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

155. It is under the aggressive Sesostris III also that 
we hear of the first invasion of Syria by the Pharaohs, 
Sebek-khu, commandant of the residence city, men- 
tions on his memorial stone at Abydos that he accom- 
panied the king on a campaign into a region called 
Sekmem in Retenu (Syria). The Asiatics were de- 
feated in battle, and Sebek-khu took a prisoner. He 
narrates with visible pride how the king rewarded him, 
and we discern a trace of the military enthusiasm which 
two centuries and a half later achieved the conquest of 
the Pharaoh's empire in the same region. While we 
do not know the location of Sekmem in Syria, it is 
highly improbable that this was the only expedition of 
the Twelfth Dynasty kings into that country. In some 
degree the Pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom were thus 
preparing the way for the conquest in Asia, as those of 
the Sixth Dynasty had done in Nubia. Already in 
Sesostris Fs time regular messengers to and from the 
Pharaonic court were traversing Syria and Palestine: 
Egyptians and the Egyptian tongue were not uncom- 
mon there, and the dread of the Pharaoh's name was 
already felt. At Gezer, between Jerusalem and the 
sea, the stela of an Egyptian official of this age and the 
statue of another have been found. The port of 
By bios, whence Snefru had brought cedar a thousand 
years before, was well known in Egypt, and Egyptian 
women were now named after her goddess (AZ, 42, 
109). Khnumhotep of Menat-Khufu depicts in his 
well-known Benihasan tomb the arrival there of thirty- 
seven Semitic tribesmen, who evidently came to trade. 
Their leader was a "ruler of the hill-country, Absha," 
a name well known in Hebrew as Abshai. The unfor- 
tunate noble, Sinuhe, who fled to Syria at the death of 
Amenemhet I, found not far over the border a friendlv 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 159 

sheik who had been in Egypt; in Syria he found 
Egyptians abiding. While a fortress existed at the 
Delta frontier to keep out the marauding Beduin, there 
can be no doubt that it was no more a hindrance to 
legitimate trade and intercourse than was the blockade 
against the negroes maintained by Sesostris III at the 
second cataract. A canal connected the Nile with this 
fortress and the Bitter Lakes of the Isthmus of Suez, 
thus joining the Nile and the Red Sea. The needs of 
the Semitic tribes of neighbouring Asia were already 
those of highly civilized peoples and gave ample occa- 
sion for trade. Already the red pottery produced by 
the Hittite peoples in Cappadocia, of Asia Minor, was 
possibly finding its way to the Semites of southern 
Palestine. Undoubtedly the commerce along this 
route, through Palestine, over Carmel and northward 
to the trade-routes leading down the Euphrates to 
Babylon, while not yet heavy, was already long existent. 
Commerce with southern Europe had also begun. The 
peoples of the iEgean, whose civilization had now de- 
veloped into that of the early Mycenaean age, were not 
unknown in Egypt at this time. Their pottery has 
been found at Kahun in burials of this age, and the 
zEgean decorative art of the time, especially in its use 
of spirals, is influenced by that of Egypt. Europe thus 
emerges more clearly upon the horizon of the Nile people 
during the Middle Kingdom (BAR, I, 676-687; 496, 
1.94; 620, noted; 493/.; 428; PEFQS, 1903, 37, 125; 
1905, 317; 1906, 121; II, Sam. x, 10; AZ, 43, 72 /.). 

156. For thirty-eight years Sesostris III continued 
his vigorous rule of a kingdom which now embraced 
a thousand miles of Nile valley. The regard in which 
he was held is evident in the extraordinary hymn in his 
honour composed before his death (GKP). To the 



160 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

name Sesostris tradition attached the first foreign con- 
quests of the Pharaohs. Around this name clustered 
forever after the stories of war and conquest related by 
the people, and in Greek times Sesostris had long since 
become but a legendary figure which cannot be identified 
with any particular king. As old age drew on, Sesos- 
tris III appointed his son as coregent, and an account 
of the appointment was recorded on the walls of the 
temple at Arsinoe in the Fayum. At Sesostris Ill's 
death in 1849 b. c, this coregent son Amenemhet, 
the third of the name, seems to have assumed the 
throne without difficulty. 

157. A number of peaceful enterprises for the pros- 
perity of the country and the increase of the royal 
revenues were successfully undertaken by Amenemhet 
III. Operations in the mines of Sinai had been resumed 
as early as the reign of Sesostris I. It remained for 
Amenemhet III to develop the equipment of the sta- 
tions in the peninsula, so that they might become more 
permanent than the mere camp of a brief expedition. 
These expeditions suffered great hardships, and an 
official of the time describes the difficulties which beset 
him when some unlucky chance had decreed that he 
should arrive there in summer (BAR, I, 733-740). 
Amenemhet III therefore made the mines at Sarbut el- 
Khadem a well equipped station (BAR, I, 725-727; 
717 /., 738). The mines were placed each under 
charge of a foreman, after whom it was named, and at 
periodic visits of the treasury officials a fixed amount of 
ore was expected from each mine. Here Egyptians 
died and were buried in the burning valley with all 
the equipment customary at home, and the ruins still 
surviving show that what had before been but an 
intermittent and occasional effort had now become 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 161 

a permanent and uninterrupted industry (BAR, I, 
731). 

158. While forced to seek new sources of wealth out- 
side of the country, the Twelfth Dynasty monarchs, as 
we have before intimated, raised the productive ca- 
pacity of the homeland to an unprecedented level. Un- 
fortunately, the annals or records of these achievements 
have not survived. We find the officials of Amenemhet 
III in the fortress of Semneh in the second cataract 
recording the height of the Nile on the rocks there, 
which thus in a few years became a nilometer, recording 
the maximum level of the high water from year to year. 
These records, still preserved upon the rocks, are from 
twenty-five to thirty feet higher than the Nile rises at 
the present day. Such observations, communicated 
without delay to the officials of Lower Egypt in the 
vizier's office, enabled them to estimate the crops of 
the coming season, and the rate of taxation was fixed 
accordingly (LD, II, 139; SB A, 1844, 374 fi.). 

159. In Lower Egypt a plan was also devised for 
extending the time during which the waters of the in- 
undation could be made available by an enormous 
scheme of irrigation. A glance at the map will show 
the reader at a point about sixty-five miles above the 
southern apex of the Delta a great depression of the 
Libyan desert known as the Fayum, a basin some forty 
miles across, which does not differ from those of the 
western oases, and is indeed an extensive oasis close to 
the Nile valley, with which it is connected by a gap in 
the western hills. In prehistoric times the high Nile 
had filled the entire Fayum basin, producing a con- 
siderable lake. The kings of the Twelfth Dynasty 
conceived the plan of controlling the inflow and out- 
flow for the benefit of the irrigation system then in 



162 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

force. At the same time they undertook vast reten- 
tion walls inside the Fayum at the point where the 
waters entered, in order to reclaim some of the area of 
the Fayum for cultivation. The earlier kings of the 
Twelfth Dynasty began this process of reclamation, 
but it was especially Amenemhet III who so extended 
this vast wall that it was at last probably about 
twenty-seven miles long, thus reclaiming a final total of 
twenty-seven thousand acres. These enormous works 
at the point where the lake was most commonly vis- 
ited gave the impression that the whole body of water 
was an artificial product, excavated, as Strabo says, 
by King "Lamares," a name in which we recognize 
with certainty the throne name of Amenemhet III. 
This was the famous lake Moeris of the classic geog- 
raphers and travellers. Modern calculations have 
shown that enough water could have been accumulated 
to double the volume of the river below the Fayum 
during the hundred davs of low Nile from the first of 
Aprilon BFLM . 

160. The rich and flourishing province recovered 
from the lake was doubtless royal domain, and there are 
evidences that it was a favourite place of abode with 
the kings of the latter part of the Twelfth Dynasty, A 
prosperous town, known to the Greeks as Crocodilo- 
polis, or Arsinoe, with its temple to Sobk, the crocodile- 
god, arose in the new province, and remains of imposing 
monuments of the time still lie near. In the gap, on 
the north bank of the inflowing canal, was a vast build- 
ing, some eight hundred by a thousand feet, which 
formed a kind of religious and administrative centre 
for the whole country, with a set of halls for each nome 
where its gods were enshrined and worshipped, and the 
councils of its government gathered from time to time. 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 163 

It would seem from the remarks of Strabo that the 
building was the Pharaoh's seat of government for the 
entire country. It was still standing in Strabo's time, 
when it had already long been known as the "Laby- 
rinth/' one of the wonders of Egypt, famous among 
travellers and historians of the Grseco-Roman world, 
who compared its intricate complex of halls and pas- 
sages with the Cretan Labyrinth of Greek tradition. 
The town which had grown up around this remarkable 
building was seen by Strabo; but both have now com- 
pletely disappeared. Sesostris II had also founded a 
town just outside the gap called Hotep-Sesostris, 
"Sesostris is contented," and he later built his pyramid 
beside it. Under these circumstances the Fayum had 
become the most prominent centre of the royal and 
governmental life of this age; and its great god Sobk 
was rivalling Amon in the regard of dynasty, whose 
last representative bore the name Sobk-nefru-Re, which 
contains that of the god. The name of the god also 
appeared in a whole series of Sobk-hoteps of the next 
dynasty. 

For nearly half a century the beneficent rule of Ame- 
nemhet III maintained peace and prosperity through- 
out his flourishing kingdom (BAR, I, 747). Business 
was on a sound basis, values were determined in terms 
of weight in copper, and it was customary to indicate 
the value of an article when mentioned in a document, 
by appending to it the words "of x deben [of copper]," 
a, deben being 1414 grains. From the frontier forts in 
the second cataract to the Mediterranean, the evidences 
of this prosperity under Amenemhet III and his prede- 
cessors still survive in the traces of their extensive monu- 
ments and building enterprises, although these have so 
suffered from the rebuilding under the Empire that 



164 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

they are but a tithe of what was once to be seen. More- 
over the vandalism of the Nineteenth Dynasty, espe- 
cially under Ramses II, obliterated priceless records of 
the Middle Kingdom by the most reckless appropriation 
of its monuments as building material. Besides the 
great works of the kings, it should not be forgotten that 
the wealthier and more powerful of the nomarchs also 
erected temples and considerable buildings for purposes 
of government; and, had the various structures due to 
these great lords survived, there is no doubt that they 
would have added materially to our impressions of the 
solidity and splendour with which the economic life of 
the nation was developing on every hand (BAR, I, 
484, 488 /.; 741 /., 534, note b; 674 /., 498-506, 503, 
637, note a; 706). 

161. Such impressions are also strengthened by the 
tombs of the time, which are indeed the only buildings 
which have survived from the feudal age; and even 
these are in a sad state of ruin. The chapel-hall in 
the cliff-tombs of the nobles, with its scenes from the 
life and activity of the departed lords, are our chief 
source for the history and life of the feudal age. The 
tombs of the Twelfth Dynasty kings show that the re- 
sources of the nation are no longer absorbed by the 
pyramid as in the Old Kingdom. Amenemhet I built 
his pyramid at Lisht of brick protected by casing 
masonry of limestone (GJL). The custom was con- 
tinued by all the kings of the dynasty with one excep- 
tion. Their pyramids are scattered from the mouth 
of the Fayum northward to Dahshur, just south of 
Memphis. All these pyramids show the most com- 
plicated and ingenious arrangements of entrance and 
passages in order to baffle the tomb-robbers. Never- 
theless all were entered and robbed in antiquity, doubt- 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 165 

less with the connivance of later officials, or even of the 
later kings themselves. The failure of these magnifi- 
cent structures to protect the bodies of their builders 
must have had something to do with the gradual dis- 
continuance of pyramid building which now ensued. 
Henceforward, with the exception of a few small 
pyramids at Thebes, we shall meet no more of these 
remarkable tombs, which, stretching in a desultory line 
along the margin of the western desert for sixty-five 
miles above the southern apex of the Delta, are the 
most impressive surviving witnesses to the grandeur of 
the civilization which preceded the Empire. 

162. Unfortunately the buildings of the Middle 
Kingdom are so fragmentary that we can gain little 
idea of their architecture. Plastic art had made a 
certain kind of progress since the Old Kingdom. 
Sculpture had become much more ambitious and at- 
tempted works of the most impressive size. The 
statues of Amenemhet III, wmich overlooked Lake 
Moeris, were probably forty or fifty feet high, and we 
find the royal sculptors furnishing ten or even sixteen 
colossal portrait statues of the king at once (BAR, I, 
601; GJL). Fragments of such colossi in massive 
granite are scattered over the ruins of Tanis and 
Bubastis, and we recall that Sesostris III erected his 
statue on the southern Nubian border (BAR, I, 660). 
Under such circumstances the royal sculptors could not 
but betray to some extent the mechanical and imitative 
spirit in which they worked. Their figures do not so 
often possess the striking vivacity and the strong in- 
dividuality which are so characteristic of the Old 
Kingdom sculpture. There is, however, now and 
then a portrait of surprising strength and individuality 
(BH, Figs. 89, 90). The chapels in the cliff-tombs of 



166 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

the nomarchs were elaborately decorated with paint- 
ings depicting the life of the deceased and the indus- 
tries on his great estates. It cannot be said that these 
paintings, excellent as many of them unquestionably 
are, show any progress over those of the Old Kingdom, 
while as flat relief they are for the most part distinctly 
inferior to the earlier work. 

163. The close and familiar oversight of the nomarch 
lent a distinct impetus to the arts and crafts, and the 
provinces developed large numbers of skilled craftsmen 
throughout the country (BAR, I, 638). Naturally the 
artisans of the court were unsurpassed. We discern 
in their work the result of the development which had 
been going on since the days of the early dynasties. 
The magnificent jewelry of the princesses of the royal 
house displays both technical skill and refined taste, 
quite beyond our anticipations. Little ever produced 
by the later goldsmiths of Europe can surpass either in 
beauty or in workmanship the regal ornaments worn 
by the daughters of the house of Amenemhet nearly 
two thousand years before Christ (MD, I). 

164. It is literature to which we must look for the 
most remarkable monuments of this age. A system of 
uniform orthography, hitherto lacking, was now de- 
veloped and followed by skilled scribes with consistency. 
The language of the age and its literary products were 
in later times regarded as classic, and in spite of its 
excessive artificialities, the judgment of modern study 
confirms that of the Empire. Although it unquestion- 
ably existed earlier, it is in Egypt and in this period 
that we first find a literature of entertainment. The 
unfortunate noble, Sinuhe, who fled into Syria on the 
death of Amenemhet I, returned to Egypt in his old 
age, and told the story of his flight, of his life and ad- 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 167 

ventures in Asia till it became a favourite tale (BAR, I, 
486 J}.), which attained such popularity that it was even 
written on sherds and flags of stone to be placed in the 
tomb for the entertainment of the dead in the here- 
after. A prototype of Sindbad the Sailor, who was 
shipwrecked in southern waters on the voyage to Punt, 
returned with a tale of marvellous adventures on the 
island of the serpent queen where he was rescued, 
and loaded with wealth and favours, was sent safely 
back to his native land (AZ, 43). The life of the court 
and the nobles found reflection among the people in 
folk-tales, narrating the great events in the dynastic 
transitions, and a tale of the rise of the Fifth Dynasty 
was now in common circulation, although our surviving 
copy was written a century or two after the fall of the 
Twelfth Dynasty (PW). The ablest literati of the 
time delighted to employ the popular tale as a medium 
for the exercise of their skill in the artificial style now 
regarded as the aim of all composition. A story com- 
monly known at the present day as the Tale of the 
Eloquent Peasant was composed solely in order to 
place in the mouth of a marvellous peasant a series of 
speeches in which he pleads his case against an official 
who had wronged him, with such eloquence that he is 
at last brought into the presence of the Pharaoh him- 
self, that the monarch may enjoy the beauty of the 
honeyed rhetoric which flows from his lips (PKM). 
We have already had occasion to notice the instruction 
left by the aged Amenemhet I for his son, which was 
very popular and has survived in no less than seven 
fragmentary copies (BAR, I, 474 ff.). The instruction 
concerning a wise and wholesome manner of life, which 
was so prized by the Egyptians, is represented by a 
number of compositions of this age, like the advice of 



168 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

the father to his son on the value of the ability to write 
(P Sail.); or the wisdom of the viziers of the Old King- 
dom; although there is no reason why the Wisdom of 
Ptahhotep and Kegemne (PP), preserved in a papyrus 
of the Middle Kingdom, should not be authentic com- 
positions of these old wise men. A remarkable phi- 
losophizing treatise represents a man weary of life in- 
volved in a long dialogue with his reluctant soul as he 
vainly attempts to persuade it that they should end life 
together and hope for better things beyond this world 
(EG). A strange and obscure composition of the time 
represents a Sibylline prophet named Ipuwer, standing 
in the presence of the king and delivering grim prophe- 
cies of coming ruin, in which the social and political 
organization shall be overthrown, until there shall come 
a saviour, who shall be "the shepherd of all the people," 
and shall save them from destruction. Specimens of 
this remarkable class of literature, of which this is the 
earliest example, may be traced as late as the early 
Christian centuries, and we cannot resist the conclusion 
that it furnished the Hebrew prophets with the form 
and to a surprising extent also with the content of 
Messianic prophecy. It remained for the Hebrew to 
give this old form a higher ethical and religious signifi- 
cance (SBA, xxvii, 601-610). 

165. So many of the compositions of the Egyptian 
scribe are couched in poetic language that it is often 
difficult to distinguish between poetry and prose. But 
even among the common people there were composi- 
tions which are distinctively poems: the song of the 
threshers as they drive their cattle to and fro upon the 
threshing-floor, a few simple lines breathing the whole- 
some industry of the people; or the lay of the harper 
as he sings to the banqueters in the halls of the rich — 



THE TWELFTH DYNASTY 169 

a song burdened with premonitions of the coming dark- 
ness and admonishing to unbridled enjoyment of the 
present ere the evil day come. 

166. The earliest known example of poetry exhibiting 
rigid strophic structure and all the conscious aritficiali- 
ties of literary art is a remarkable hymn of six strophes, 
singing the praises of Sesostris III, and written during 
that king's lifetime. The dramatic presentation of the 
life and death of Osiris at Abydos undoubtedly de- 
manded much dialogue and recitation, which must at 
least have assumed permanent form and have been 
committed to writing. Unfortunately this, the earliest 
known drama, has perished. It is characteristic of 
this early world that in neither the art nor the literature,/ 
of which we have a considerable mass from the Middle 
Kingdom, can we discern any individuals to whom 
these great works should be attributed. Among all the 
literary productions which we have enumerated it is 
only of the wisdom, the "instruction," that we know 
the authors. Of the literature of the age, as a whole, 
we may say that it now displays a wealth of imagery 
and a fine mastery of form which five hundred years 
earlier, at the close of the Old Kingdom, was but just 
emerging. The content of the surviving works does not 
display evidence of constructive ability in the larger 
sense, involving both form and content. It is possible, 
however, that the Osirian drama, which offered greater 
constructive opportunity, might have altered this ver- 
dict if it had survived. 

167. It was thus over a nation in the fulness of its 
powers, rich and productive in every avenue of life, 
that Amenemhet III ruled; and his reign crowned the 
classic age which had dawned with the advent of his 
family. This may perhaps have been due to the fact 



170 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: THE FEUDAL AGE 

that already in the reign of the mighty Sesostris III 
the power of the feudal barons had been broken; we 
find no tombs of these rich country nobles from the 
accession of Sesostris III on. The Pharaoh's power 
had suppressed them almost to disappearance. Thus 
Amenemhet III had a free hand. But when he passed 
away in 1801 B. c. the strength of the line was wan- 
ing. As Prammares, god of the Fayum, the worship 
of the great king survived far into Greek days. A 
fourth Amenemhet, after a short coregency with the 
old king, succeeded at the death of Amenemhet III, 
but his brief reign of a little over nine years has left 
few monuments, and the decline of the house, to whom 
the nation owed two centuries of imperishable splen- 
dour, was evident. Amenemhet IV left no son, for he 
was succeeded by the Princess Sebek-nefru-Re, the 
Skemiophris of Manetho. After struggling on for 
nearly four years she too, the last of her line, disap- 
peared. The family had ruled Egypt two hundred 
and thirteen years, one month and some days (AZ, 42, 
111#.; 43, 84#.; BAR, I, 64). 



PART IV 

THE HYKSOS: 
THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 



XI 

THE FALL OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM. THE HYKSOS 

168. While the transition of authority to another 
dynasty (the Thirteenth) had seemingly taken place 
without disturbance, its first king, Sekhemre-Khutowe, 
was early overthrown after a reign of but five years. 
Rapid dissolution followed, as the provincial lords 
rose against each other and strove for the throne. 
Pretender after pretender struggled for supremacy; 
now and again one more able than his rivals would gain 
a brief advantage and wear his ephemeral honours, 
only to be quickly supplanted by another. Private in- 
dividuals contended with the rest and occasionally won 
the coveted goal, only to be overthrown by a successful 
rival. A Sebekemsaf of this time ruled long enough 
to build a modest pyramid for himself and his queen 
at Thebes, where their bodies were found violated and 
robbed six hundred and fifty years later, by the Ram- 
essid inspectors (BAR, IV, 517,). At one time a usur- 
per named Neferhotep succeeded in overthrowing one 
of the many Sebekhoteps of the time, and established 
stable government. He made no secret of his origin, 
and on the monuments added the names of his untitled 
parents without scruple (BAR, I, 753-765). He 
reigned eleven years, when he was succeeded by 
his son, Sihathor, who shortly gave way to his fa- 
ther's brother, Neferkhere-Sebekhotep (Note II; TP, 

173 



174 THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

Frag. No. 80; P Scar., No. 309). It was, however, 
but a brief restoration, and the monuments which 
have survived bear no records to inform us of its 
character. 

169. The darkness which followed is only the more 
obscure by contrast. Foreign adventurers took advan- 
tage of the opportunity, and one of the pretenders 
who achieved a brief success was a Nubian. Within 
a century and a quarter after the fall of the Twelfth 
Dynasty sixty of these ephemeral Theban rulers had 
held the throne, forming Manetho's Thirteenth Dynas- 
ty. They left little behind them. Here and there a 
fragment of masonry, a statue, or sometimes only a 
scarab bearing a royal name, furnishes contemporary 
testimony to the brief reign of this or that one among 
them. There was neither power, nor wealth, nor time 
for the erection of permanent monuments; king still 
followed king with unprecedented rapidity, and for 
most of them our only source of knowledge is therefore 
the bare name in the mutilated Turin list, the dis- 
ordered fragments of which have not even preserved for 
us the order of these ephemeral rulers except as we find 
groups upon one fragment. Where preserved at all, 
the length of the reign is usually but a year or two, 
while in two cases we find after a king's name but 
three days. 

170. Economically the condition of the country must 
have rapidly degenerated. The lack of a uniform ad- 
ministration of the irrigation system, oppressive taxa- 
tion and the tyranny of warring factions in need of 
funds sapped the energies and undermined the pros- 
perity of the past two centuries. The hapless nation 
was thus an easy prey to foreign aggression. About 
1657 b. c, before the close of the Thirteenth Dynasty, 



THE FALL OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM 175 

there now poured into the Delta from Asia a possibly 
Semitic invasion such as that which in prehistoric times 
had stamped the language with its unmistakable form; 
and again in our own era, under the influence of Mo- 
hammed's teaching, had overwhelmed the land (MNC 
34) . These invaders, now generally called the Hyksos, 
after the designation applied to them by Josephus 
(quoting Manetho), themselves left so few monuments in 
Egypt that even their nationality is still the subject of 
much difference of opinion; while the exact length and 
character of their supremacy, for the same reason, are 
equally obscure matters. The documentary materials 
bearing on them are so meagre and limited in extent 
that the reader may easily survey them and judge the 
question for himself, even if this chapter is thereby 
in danger of relapsing into a "laboratory note-book.' * 
The late tradition regarding the Hyksos, recorded by 
Manetho and preserved to us in the essay of Josephus 
against Apion, is but the substance of a folk-tale like 
that narrating the fall of the Fourth Dynasty (above, p. 
112). The more ancient and practically contemporary 
evidence should therefore be questioned first. 

Two generations after the Hyksos had been expelled 
from the country, the great queen, Hatshepsut, narrating 
her restoration of the temples they had desecrated, calls 
them "Asiatics" and "barbarians" dwelling in Avaris, 
and ruling "in ignorance of Re" (BAR, II, 303). 
The still earlier evidence of a soldier in the Egyptian 
army that expelled the Hyksos shows that a siege of 
Avaris was necessary to drive them from the country; 
and, further, that the pursuit of them was continued 
into southern Palestine, and ultimately into Phoenicia 
or Ccelesyria (BAR, II, 8-10; 12 /., 20). Some four 
hundred years after their expulsion a folk-tale, narrat- 



176 THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

ing the cause of the final war against them, was cir- 
culating among the people. It gives an interesting 
account of them: 

"Now it came to pass that the land of Egypt was 
the possession of the polluted, no lord being king at the 
time when it happened; but King Sekenenre, he was ruler 
of the Southern City [Thebes] . . . King Apophis was 
in Avaris, and the whole land was tributary to him; 
the [Southland] bearing their impost, and the North- 
land likewise bearing every good thing of the Delta. 
Now King Apophis made Sutekh his lord, serving no 
other god, who was in the whole land, save Sutekh. 
He built the temple in beautiful and everlasting work. 
. . ." (P Sail., I, II. 1-3). 

171. From these earlier documents it is evident that 
the Hyksos were an Asiatic people who ruled Egypt 
from their stronghold of Avaris in the Delta. The 
exact site of Avaris is still undetermined. The later 
tradition as quoted from Manetho by Josephus in the 
main corroborates the above more trustworthy evidence, 
and is as follows: 

"There was a king of ours whose name was Timaios, 
in whose reign it came to pass, I know not why, that 
God was displeased with us, and there came unex- 
pectedly men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, 
who had boldness enough to make an expedition into 
our country, and easily subdued it by force without a 
battle. And when they had got our rulers under their 
power, they afterward savagely burnt down our cities 
and demolished the temples of the gods, and used all 
the inhabitants in a most hostile manner, for they slew 
some and led the children and wives of others into 
slavery. At length they made one of themselves king, 
whose name was Salatis, and he lived at Memphis and 



THE FALL OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM 177 

made both Upper and Lower Egypt pay tribute, and 
left garrisons in places that were most suitable for 
them. And he made the eastern part especially strong, 
as he foresaw that the Assyrians, who had then the 
greatest power, would covet their kingdom and invade 
them. And as he found in the Saite [read Sethroite] 
nome a city very fit for his purpose — which lay east 
of the arm of the Nile near Bubastis, and with regard 
to a certain theological notion was called Avaris — he 
rebuilt it and made it very strong by the walls he built 
around it and by a numerous garrison of two hundred 
and forty thousand armed men, whom he put into it to 
keep it. There Salatis went every summer, partly to 
gather in his corn and pay his soldiers their wages, and 
partly to train his armed men and so to awe foreigners" 
(Contra Apion, I, 14). 

172. If we eliminate the absurd reference to the 
Assyrians and the preposterous number of the garrison 
at Avaris, the tale may be credited as in general a prob- 
able narrative. The further account of the Hyksos in 
the same essay shows clearly that the late tradition was 
at a loss to identify them as to nationality and origin. 
Still quoting from Manetho, Josephus says: "All this 
nation was styled Hyksos, that is, Shepherd Kings; 
for the first syllable 'hyk' in the sacred dialect denotes 
a king, and 'sos' signifies a shepherd, but this is only 
according to the vulgar tongue; and of these was com- 
pounded the term Hyksos. Some say they were Ara- 
bians." According to his epitomizers, Manetho also 
called them Phoenicians. Turning to the designations 
of Asiatic rulers as preserved on the Middle Kingdom 
and Hyksos monuments, there is no such term to be 
found as "ruler of shepherds," and Manetho wisely 
adds that the word "sos" only means shepherd in the 



178 THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

late vulgar dialect. There is no such word known in 
the older language of the monuments. "Hyk" (Egyp- 
tian Hie'), however, is a common word for ruler, as 
Manetho says, and Khian, one of the Hyksos kings, 
often gives himself this title upon his monuments, fol- 
lowed by a word for " countries," which by slight and 
very common phonetic changes might become "sos"; 
so that "Hyksos" is a not improbable Greek spelling 
for the Egyptian title "Ruler of Countries." 

173. Looking further at the scanty monuments left 
by the Hyksos themselves, we discover a few vague but 
nevertheless significant hints as to the character of 
these strange invaders, whom tradition called Arabians 
and Phoenicians; and contemporary monuments desig- 
nated as "Asiatics," "barbarians," and "rulers of 
countries." An Apophis, one of their kings, fashioned 
an altar, now at Cairo, and engraved upon it the dedi- 
cation: "He [Apophis] made it as his monument for 
his father Sutekh, lord of Avaris, when he [Sutekh] set 
all lands under his [the king's] feet" (MMD, 38). 
General as is the statement, it would appear that this 
Apophis ruled over more than the land of Egypt. 
More significant are the monuments of Khian, the 
most remarkable of this line of kings. They have been 
found from Gebelen in southern Egypt to the northern 
Delta; but they do not stop here. Under a Mycenaean 
wall in the palace of Cnossos in Crete an alabaster vase- 
lid bearing his name was discovered by Mr. Evans 
(Annual of British School at Athens, VII, 65, Fig. 21); 
while a granite lion with his cartouche upon the breast, 
found many years ago at Bagdad, is now in the British 
Museum. One of his royal names was " Encompasser 
[literally 'embracer'] of the Lands," and we recall that his 
constant title upon his scarabs and cylinders is "ruler of 



THE FALL OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM 179 

Scarabs of the Hyksos rulers have been 
turned up by the excavations in southern Palestine. 
Meagre as these data are, one cannot contemplate 
them without seeing conjured up before him the vision 
of a vanished empire which once stretched from the 
Euphrates to the first cataract of the Nile, an empire 
of which all other evidence has perished, for the reason 
that Avaris, the capital of its rulers, was in the Delta 
where, like so many other Delta cities, it suffered a 
destruction so complete that we cannot even locate the 
spot on which it once stood. There was, moreover, 
every reason why the victorious Egyptians should anni- 
hilate all evidence of the supremacy of their hated con- 
querors. In the light of these developments it becomes 
evident why the invaders did not set up their capital 
in the midst of the conquered land, but remained in 
Avaris, on the extreme east of the Delta, close to the 
borders of Asia. It was that they might rule not only 
Egypt, but also their Asiatic dominions. Accepting the 
above probabilities, we can also understand how the 
Hyksos could retire to Asia and withstand the Egyptian 
onset for three years in southern Palestine, as we know 
from contemporary evidence they did (BAR, II, 13). 
It then becomes clear also how they could retreat to 
Syria when beaten in southern Palestine; these move- 
ments were possible because they controlled Palestine 
and Syria. 

174. If we ask ourselves regarding the nationality, 
origin and character of this mysterious Hyksos empire, 
we can hazard little in reply. Manetho's tradition that 
they were Arabians and Phoenicians, if properly inter- 
preted, may be correct. Such an overflow of southern 
Semitic emigration into Syria, as we know has since 
then taken place over and over again, may well have 



180 THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

brought together these two elements; and a generation 
or two of successful warrior-leaders might weld them 
together into a rude state. The wars of the Pharaohs 
in Syria immediately after the expulsion of the Hyksos 
show the presence of civilized and highly developed 
states there. Now, such an empire as we believe the 
Hyksos ruled could hardly have existed without leaving 
its traces among the peoples of Syria-Palestine for some 
generations after the beginning of the Egyptian su- 
premacy in Asia which now followed. It would there- 
fore be strange if we could not discern in the records 
of the subsequent Egyptian wars in Asia some evidence 
of the surviving wreck of the once great Hyksos empire 
which the Pharaohs demolished. 

175. For two generations after the expulsion of the 
Hyksos we can gain little insight into the conditions in 
Syria. At this point the ceaseless campaigns of Thut- 
mose III, as recorded in his Annals, enable us to dis- 
cern which nation was then playing the leading role 
there. The great coalition of the kings of Palestine 
and Syria, with which Thutmose III was called upon 
to contend at the beginning of his wars, was led and 
dominated throughout by the powerful king of Kadesh 
on the Orontes. It required ten years of constant 
campaigning by Thutmose III to achieve the capture 
of the stubborn city and the subjugation of the kingdom 
of which it was the head; but with power still un- 
broken it revolted, and Thutmose Ill's twenty years 
of warfare in Syria w T ere only crowned with victory 
when he finally succeeded in again defeating Kadesh, 
after a dangerous and persistent struggle. The leader- 
ship of Kadesh from the beginning to the end of Thut- 
mose Ill's campaigns is such as to show that many 
Syrian and Palestinian kinglets, especially in southern 



THE FALL OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM 181 

Lebanon, were its vassals. It is in this Syrian domi- 
nation of the king of Kadesh that we should probably 
recognize the last nucleus of the Hyksos empire, finally 
annihilated by the genius of Thutmose III. Hence it 
was that Thutmose III, the final destroyer of the 
Hyksos empire, became also the traditional hero who 
expelled the invaders from Egypt; and as Misphrag- 
mouthosis he thus appears in Manetho's story as the 
liberator of his country. That it was an empire of 
some Semitic elements we cannot doubt, in view of the 
Manethonian tradition and the subsequent conditions 
in Syria-Palestine. Moreover the scarabs of a Pharaoh 
who evidently belonged to the Hyksos time give his 
name as Jacob-her or possibly Jacob-El, and it is not 
impossible that some chief of the Jacob-tribes of Israel 
for a time gained the leadership in this obscure age. 
Such an incident would account surprisingly well for 
the entrance of these tribes into Egypt, which on any 
hypothesis must have taken place at about this age; 
and in that case the Hebrews in Egypt will have been 
but a part of the Beduin allies of the Kadesh or Hyksos 
empire, whose presence there brought into the tradition 
the partially correct impression that the Hyksos were 
shepherds, and led Manetho to his untenable etymology 
of the second part of the word. Likewise the naive 
assumption of Josephus, who identifies the Hyksos with 
the Hebrews, may thus contain a kernel of truth, how- 
ever accidental. But such precarious combinations 
should not be made without a full realization of their 
hazardous character. 

176. Of the reign of these remarkable conquerors in 
Egypt we know no more than of their contemporaries, 
the Egyptian dynasts of this age. Shortly after the 
invasion of the Hyksos, the Thirteenth Dynasty at 



182 THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

Thebes died out about 1665 b. c. The local Four- 
teenth Dynasty at Xois in the Delta had probably 
already arisen as ephemeral vassals of the Hyksos. 
Similar vassals doubtless continued to rule in Thebes 
and probably throughout Upper Egypt. Both the ac- 
count in Manetho and the folk-tale above quoted state 
that the Hyksos kings laid the whole country under 
tribute, and we have already observed that Hyksos 
monuments have been found as far south as Gebelen. 
The beginning of their rule may have been a gradual 
immigration without hostilities, as Manetho relates. It 
is perhaps in this epoch that we should place one of 
their kings, a certain Khenzer, who seems to have left 
the affairs of the country largely in the hands of his 
vizier, Enkhu, so that the latter administered and re- 
stored the temples (BAR, I, 781-787). As this vizier 
lived in the period of Neferhotep and the connected 
Sebekhoteps, it is evident that we should place the 
gradual rise of Hyksos power in Egypt just after that 
group of Pharaohs. 

177. From the contemporary monuments we learn 
the names of three Apophises and of Khian, besides 
possibly Khenzer and Jacob-her, whom we have al- 
ready noted. Among the six names preserved from 
Manetho by Josephus we can recognize but two, an 
Apophis and Iannas, who is certainly the same as Khian 
of the contemporary monuments. The only contem- 
porary date is that of the thirty-third year of an Apophis, 
in the mathematical papyrus of the British Museum. 
The Manethonian tradition in which we find three 
dynasties of shepherds or Hyksos (the Fifteenth to 
Seventeenth) is totally without support from the con- 
temporary monuments in the matter of the duration of 
the Hyksos supremacy in Egypt. A hundred years is 



THE FALL OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM 183 

ample for the whole period. Even if it was actually 
much longer, this fact would not necessarily extend the 
length of the period from the fall of the Twelfth Dy- 
nasty to the end of the Hyksos rule; for it is evident 
that many of the numerous kings of this period, enu- 
merated in the Turin Papyrus, ruled as vassals of the 
Hyksos, like the Sekenenre, whom the folk-tale makes 
the Theban vassal of one of the Apophises. 

178. What occasioned the unquestionable barbarities 
on the part of the conquerors, it is now impossible 
to discern; but it is evident that hostilities must have 
eventually broken out, causing the destruction of the 
temples, later restored by Hatshepsut. Their patron 
god Sutekh is of course the Egyptianized form of some 
Syrian Baal; Sutekh being an older form of the well- 
known Egyptian Set. The Hyksos kings themselves 
must have been rapidly Egyptianized; they assumed 
the complete Pharaonic titulary, and they appropriated 
statues of their predecessors in the Delta cities, wrought, 
of course, in the conventional style peculiar to the 
Pharaohs. Civilization did not essentially suffer; a 
mathematical treatise dated under one of the Apophises 
is preserved in the British Museum. We have already 
seen one of the Apophises building a temple in Avaris, 
and a fragment of a building inscription of an Apophis 
at Bubastis says that he made "numerous flag-staves 
tipped with copper for this god," such flag-staves flying 
a tuft of gaily coloured pennants being used to adorn a 
temple front (NB, I, pi. 35 c). Having once gained 
the upper hand, the Hyksos Dynasty evidently slowly 
decayed to become at last much like their own Egyptian 
vassals. The country was now broken up into petty 
kingdoms, of which Thebes was evidently the largest 
in the South. Nubkheprure-Intef, one of a group of 



THE HYKSOS : THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

three Intefs who ruled there, frankly discloses the con- 
ditions in a decree of banishment, naively declaring 
that no other king or ruler showing mercy to a banished 
traitor shall become Pharaoh of the whole country 
BAR, I, 773-780). These Intefs were buried at 
Thebes, where the pyramids of two of them were in- 
spected five hundred years later by the Ramessid com- 
missioners, who found that one of them had been tun- 
nelled into by tomb robbers BAR, IV. 514 /. : 517, 
H . The influence upon Egypt of such a foreign 
dominion, including both Syria-Palestine and the lower 
Nile valley, was epoch making, and had much to do 
with the fundamental transformation which began with 
the expulsion of these aliens. It brought the horse into 
the Nile valley and taught the Egyptians warfare on 
a large scale. Whatever they may have suffered, the 
Egyptians owed an incalculable debt to their con- 
querors. 



XII 



THE EXPULSION OF THE HYKSOS AND THE TRIUMPH 
OF THEBES 

179. It must have been about 1600 B. c, nearly two 
hundred years after the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty, 
that the Sekenere of the folk-tale was ruling in Thebes 
under the suzerainty of a Hyksos Apophis in Avaris 
(see p. 176). This tale, as current four hundred years 
later in Ramessid days, is our only source for the events 
that immediately followed. After its account of the 
Hyksos, which the reader will recall as quoted above, 
there finally follows a council of Apophis and his wise 
men; but what took place at this council is quite un- 
certain. It concerned a plot or design against King 
Sekenenre, however, for the story then recounts how 
Apophis sent a messenger to complain to King Sekenenre 
in Thebes, that the noise of the hippopotami there dis- 
turbed his sleep in Avaris. Here the tantalizing bit 
of papyrus is torn off, and we shall never know the 
conclusion of the tale (P Sail., I, II, 1. l-III, 1. 3). 
However, what we have in it is the popular and tradi- 
tional version of an incident, doubtless regarded as the 
occasion of the long war between the Theban princes 
and the Hyksos in Avaris. The preposterous casus 
belli, is folk-history, a wave mark among the people, 
left by the tide which the Hyksos war set in motion. 
Manetho corroborates the general situation depicted in 

185 



186 THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

the tale ; for he says that the kings of the Thebaid and 
other parts of Egypt made a great and long war upon 
the Hyksos in Avaris. His use of the plural "kings" 
immediately suggests the numerous local dynasts, whom 
we have met before, each contending with his neigh- 
bour and effectually preventing the country from pre- 
senting a united front to the northern foe. There were 
three Sekenenres. The mummy of the last of the three 
discovered in the great find at Der el-Bahri, and now 
at the Cairo museum, exhibits frightful wounds in the 
head, so that he doubtless fell in battle, not improbably 
in the Hyksos war. They were followed by a King 
Kemose who probably continued the war. This 
Theban family, who form the latter part of Manetho's 
Seventeenth Dynasty, were obliged to maintain them- 
selves not merely against the Hyksos, but also against 
numerous rival dynasts, especially in the extreme South 
above El Kab. Here, removed from the turmoil of 
northern war, and able to carry on a flourishing internal 
commerce, the local princes enjoyed great prosperity, 
while those of the North had doubtless in many in- 
stances perished. We shall later find these prosperous 
dynasts of the South holding out against the rising 
power of Thebes while the latter was slowly expelling 
the Hyksos. 

180. Following Kemose's short reign, Ahmose I, pos- 
sibly his son, the first king of Manetho's Eighteenth 
Dynasty, assumed the leadership of the Theban house, 
about 1580 b. c, and became the deliverer of Egypt 
from her foreign lords. He succeeded in holding the 
valuable support of the powerful El Kab princes, al- 
ready won by Sekenenre III, and he employed them 
against both the Hyksos and the obstinate local dynasts 
of the upper river, who constantly threatened his rear. 



THE TRIUMPH OF THEBES 187 

Ahmose thus made El Kab a buffer, which protected 
him from the attacks of his Egyptian rivals south of 
that city. No document bearing on the course of the 
war with the Hyksos in its earlier stages has survived 
to us, nor have any of Ahmose's royal annals been pre- 
served, but one of his El Kab allies, named Ahmose, 
son of Ebana, has fortunately left an account of his 
own military career on the walls of his tomb at El Kab 
(BAR, II, 17 ff.). He tells how he was taken from El 
Kab and given service in the northern fleet against the 
Hyksos in Avaris. After three battles before the city, 
the siege of Avaris was interrupted by an uprising of 
one of Ahmose's southern enemies, a hostile dynasty 
above El Kab — a danger which was regarded as so 
serious by the king that he himself went south to meet 
it, and took Ahmose, son of Ebana, with him. Having 
sufficiently quelled his southern rivals, Ahmose resumed 
the siege of Avaris, for at this point our naval officer 
abruptly announces its capture: " One captured Avaris; 
I took captive there one man and three women, total 
four heads. His majesty gave them to me for slaves." 
The city thus fell on the fourth assault after the arrival 
of Ahmose, son of Ebana, but it is quite uncertain how 
many such assaults had been made before his trans- 
ference thither, for the siege had evidently lasted many 
years and had been interrupted by a rebellion in Upper 
Egypt (BAR, II, 7-12). 

181. Ahmose I pursued the Hyksos fleeing into Asia 
after being driven from Avaris, and they took refuge in 
Sharuhen, probably in southern Judah (Josh., 19, 6). 
Our biographer now says: "One besieged Sharuhen 
for three years and his majesty took it. Then I took 
captive there two women and one hand. One gave 
to me the gold of bravery besides giving me the captives 



188 THE HYKSOS: THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

for slaves" (Note III; BAR, II, 13). This is the 
earliest siege of such length known in history, and it is 
surprising evidence of the stubbornness of the Hyksos 
defence and the tenacity of King Ahmose in dislodging 
them from a stronghold in such dangerous proximity 
to the Egyptian frontier. Ahmose then pursued the 
Hyksos northward from Sharuhen, forcing them back 
to at least a safe distance from the Delta frontier. 
Returning to Egypt, now entirely free from all fear of 
its Hyksos lords, he gave his attention to the recovery 
of the Egyptian possessions in Nubia. 

182. During the long period of disorganization fol- 
lowing the Middle Kingdom, the Nubians had natur- 
ally taken advantage of their opportunity and fallen 
away. How far Ahmose penetrated it is impossible to 
determine, but he was no sooner well out of the country 
on the Nubian campaign than his inveterate rivals 
south of El Kab again arose against him. Totally de- 
feated in a battle on the Nile, they rose yet again and 
Ahmose was obliged to quell one more rebellion before 
he was left in undisputed possession of the throne. Our 
old friend Ahmose, son of Ebana, was rewarded for 
his valour in these actions with five slaves and five stat 
(nearly three and a half acres) of land in El Kab, 
and again he says : " There were given to me three heads 
[slaves] and five stat of land in my city." His comrades 
were treated with equal generosity (BAR, II, 14-16). 
We thus see how king Ahmose bound his supporters 
to his cause. He did not stop, however, with gold, 
slaves and land, but in some cases even granted the 
local princes, the descendants of the great feudal 
lords of the Middle Kingdom, high and royal titles like 
"first king's son," which, while perhaps conveying few 
or no prerogatives, satisfied the vanity of old and illustri- 



THE TRIUMPH OF THEBES 189 

ous families, like that of El Kab, who deserved well, at 
his hands. There were but few of the local nobles who 
thus supported Ahmose and gained his favour; the 
larger number opposed both him and the Hyksos and 
perished in the struggle. Their more fortunate fellows, 
being now nothing more than court and administrative 
officials, the feudal lords, who had survived the re- 
pressive hand of the Pharaoh during the second half 
of the Middle Kingdom, thus practically disappeared. 
The lands which formed their hereditary possessions 
were confiscated and passed to the crown, where they 
permanently remained. There was one notable ex- 
ception; the house of El Kab, to which the Theban 
dynasty owed so much, was allowed to retain its lands, 
and two generations after the expulsion of the Hyksos, 
the head of the house appears as lord, not only of El 
Kab but also Esneh and all the intervening territory. 
Besides this he was given administrative charge, though 
not hereditary possession, of the lands of the south from 
the vicinity of Thebes (Per-Hathor) to El Kab. Yet 
this exception serves but to accentuate more sharply the 
total extinction of the landed nobility, who had formed 
the substance of the governmental organization under 
the Middle Kingdom. We do indeed find a handful of 
barons still wearing their old feudal titles, but they re- 
sided at Thebes and were buried there (BAR,, II, 329, 
note e). All Egypt was now the personal estate of the 
Pharaoh just as it was after the destruction of the 
Mamlukes by Mohammed Ali early in the nineteenth 
century. It is this state of affairs which in Hebrew 
tradition was represented as the direct result of Joseph's 
sagacity (Gen. xlvii: 19-20). 



PART V 
THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 



XIII 

THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION 

183. The task of building up a state, which now 
confronted Ahmose I, differed materially from the re- 
organization accomplished at the beginning of the 
Twelfth Dynasty by Amenemhet I. The latter dealt 
with social and political factors no longer new in his 
time, whereas Ahmose had now to begin with the erec- 
tion of a fabric of government out of elements so com- 
pletely divorced from the old forms as to have lost their 
identity, being now in a state of total flux. The course 
of events, which culminated in the expulsion of the 
Hyksos, determined for Ahmose the form which the 
new state was to assume. He was now at the head of a 
strong army, effectively organized and welded together 
by long campaigns and sieges protracted through years, 
during which he had been both general in the field and 
head of the state. The character of the government 
followed involuntarily out of these conditions. Egypt 
became a military state. It was quite natural that it 
should remain so, in spite of the usually un warlike char- 
acter of the Egyptian. The long war with the Hyksos 
had now educated him as a soldier, the large army of 
Ahmose had spent years in Asia and had even been for 
a longer or shorter period among the rich cities of Syria. 
Having thoroughly learned war and having perceived 
the enormous wealth to be gained by it in Asia, the 

193 



194 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

whole land was roused and stirred with a lust of con- 
quest, which was not quenched for several centuries. 
The wealth, the rewards and the promotion open to the 
professional soldier were a constant incentive to a 
military career, and the middle classes, otherwise so un- 
warlike, now entered the ranks with ardour. In the 
biographies which they have left in their tombs at 
Thebes the survivors of the noble class narrate with the 
greatest satisfaction the campaigns which they went 
through at the Pharaoh's side, and the honours which 
he bestowed upon them (BAR, II, 1-16; 17-25 et 
passim). Many a campaign, all record of which would 
have been irretrievably lost, has thus come to our 
knowledge through one of these military biographies, 
like that of Ahmose, son of Ebana, from which we have 
quoted (Ibid). The sons of the Pharaoh, who in the 
Old Kingdom held administrative offices, are now 
generals in the army (BAR, II, 350; 362). For the next 
century and a half the story of the achievements of the 
army will be the story of Egypt, for the army is now 
the dominant force and the chief motive power in the 
new state. In organization it quite surpassed the 
militia of the old days, if for no other reason than that 
it was now a standing army. It was organized into two 
grand divisions, one in the Delta and the other in the 
upper country (BAR, III, 56). In Syria it had learned 
tactics and proper strategic disposition of forces, the 
earliest of which we know anything in history. We 
shall now find partition of an army into divisions, we 
shall hear of wings and centre, we shall even trace a 
flank movement and define battle lines. All this is 
fundamentally different from the disorganized plunder- 
ing expeditions naively reported as wars by the monu- 
ments of the older periods. Besides the old bow and 



THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION 195 

spear, the troops henceforth carry also a war axe. 
They have learned archery fire by volleys and the 
dreaded archers of Egypt now gained a reputation which 
followed and made them feared even in classic times. 
But more than this, the Hyksos having brought the 
horse into Egypt, the Egyptian armies now for the first 
time possessed a large proportion of chariotry. Cavalry 
in the modern sense of the term was not employed. 
The deft craftsmen of Egypt soon mastered the art of 
chariot-making, while the stables of the Pharaoh con- 
tained thousands of the best horses to be had in Asia. 
In accordance with the spirit of the time, the Pharaoh 
was accompanied on all public appearances by a body- 
guard of elite troops and a group of his favourite mili- 
tary officers. 

184. This new state is revealed to us more clearly 
than that of any other period of Egyptian history under 
native dynasties. The supreme position occupied by 
the Pharaoh meant a very active participation in the 
affairs of government. He was accustomed every 
morning to meet the vizier, still the mainspring of the 
administration, to consult with him on all the interests 
of the country and all the current business which 
necessarily came under his eye. Immediately thereafter 
he held a conference with the chief treasurer. These 
two men headed the chief departments of government: 
the treasury and the judiciary. The Pharaohs office, 
in which they made their daily reports to him, was the 
central organ of the whole government where all its 
lines converged. Even in the limited number of such 
documents preserved to us, we discern the vast array of 
detailed questions in practical administration which the 
busy monarch decided, going on frequent journeys to 
examine new buildings and check all sorts of official 



196 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

abuses. Besides numerous campaigns in Nubia and 
Asia, he visited the quarries and mines in the desert or 
inspected the desert routes, seeking suitable locations 
for wells and stations. The official cults in the great 
temples, too, demanded more and more of the monarch's 
time and attention as feasts and ritual were multiplied. 
Early in the Eighteenth Dynasty, however, the business 
of government and the duties of the Pharaoh had so 
increased that he appointed a second vizier. One re- 
sided at Thebes, for the administration of the South, 
from the cataract as far as the nome of Siut; while the 
other, who had charge of all the region north of the 
latter point, lived at Heliopolis (GIM). 

For administrative purposes the country was divided 
into irregular districts, of which there were at least 
twenty-seven between Siut and the cataract, and the 
country as a whole must have been divided into over 
twice that number. The head of government in the old 
towns still bore the feudal title "count," but it now 
indicated solely administrative duties and might better 
be translated " mayor" or "governor." Each of the 
smaller towns had a "town-ruler," but in the other 
districts there were only recorders and scribes, with one 
of their number at their head (BAR, II, 716-745). 

185. The great object of government was to make the 
country economically strong and productive. To secure 
this end, its lands, now chiefly owned by the crown, were 
worked by the king's serfs, controlled by his officials, or 
entrusted by him as permanent and indivisible fiefs to 
his favourite nobles, his partisans and relatives. Divis- 
ible parcels might also be held by tenants of the un- 
titled classes. Both classes of holdings might be trans- 
ferred by will or sale in much the same way as if the 
holder actually owned the land. For purposes of 



THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION 197 

taxation all lands and other property of the crown, 
except that held by the temples, were recorded in the 
tax-registers of the White House, as the treasury was 
still called (BAR, II, 916, 1, 31). On the basis of these, 
taxes were assessed. They were still collected in 
naturalia: cattle, grain, wine, oil, honey, textiles and 
the like. Besides the cattle-yards, the "granary" 
was the chief sub-department of the White House, and 
there were innumerable other magazines for the storage 
of its receipts. If we may accept Hebrew tradition as 
transmitted in the story of Joseph, such taxes comprised 
one fifth of the produce of the land (Gen. xlvii, 23-27). 
The chief treasurer, through the local officials above 
noticed, collected all such taxes ; he was however, under 
the authority of the vizier, to whom he made a report 
every morning, after which he received permission to 
open the offices and magazines for the day's business 
(BAR, II, 679). The collection of a second class of 
revenue, that paid by the local officials themselves as a 
tax upon their offices, was exclusively in the hands of 
the viziers. The southern vizier was responsible for 
all the officials of Upper Egypt in his jurisdiction from 
Elephantine to Siut; and in view of this fact the other 
vizier doubtless bore a similar responsibility in the 
North. This tax on the officials consisted chiefly of 
gold, silver, grain, cattle and linen, a stately sum in the 
annual revenues. All foreign tribute was reported to 
the southern vizier at Thebes. We can unfortunately 
form no estimate of the total of all revenues. Of the 
royal income from all sources in the Eighteenth Dynasty 
the southern vizier had general charge. The amount of 
all taxes to be levied and the distribution of the revenue 
when collected were determined in his office, where a 
constant balance sheet was kept. In order to control 



198 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

both income and outgo, a monthly fiscal report was 
made to him by all local officials, and thus the southern 
vizier was able to furnish the king from month to month 
with a full statement of prospective resources in the 
roval treasury (BAR, 11,708; 716-745; 709; 746-751; 
760 /.). 

186. In the administration of justice the southern 
vizier played even a greater role than in the treasury. 
Here he was supreme. The old magnates of the South- 
ern Tens, once possessed of important judicial functions, 
have sunk to a mere attendant council at the vizier's 
public audiences, where they seem to have retained not 
even advisory functions (BAR, II, 712). The six " great 
houses" or courts of justice have evidently disappeared 
save in the title of the vizier. All petitioners for legal 
redress applied first to him in his audience hall ; if possi- 
ble in person, but in any case in writing. Every morn- 
ing the people crowded into the "hall of the vizier," 
where the ushers and bailiffs jostled them into line that 
they might "be heard," in order of arrival, one after 
another. All crimes in the capital city w T ere denounced 
and tried before him, and he maintained a criminal 
docket of prisoners awaiting trial or punishment, which 
strikingly suggests modern documents of the same sort. 
All this, and especially the land cases, demanded rapid 
and convenient access to the archives of the land. They 
were therefore all filed in his office. No one might 
make a will without filing it in the "vizier's hall." 
Copies of all nome archives, boundary records and all 
contracts were deposited with him or with his colleague 
in the North. Every petitioner to the king was obliged 
to hand in his petition in writing at the same office 
(BAR, II, 675; 714/.; 683; 688; 703; 691; GDI). 

187. Besides the vizier's "hall," also called the 



THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION 199 

"great council/' there were local councils throughout the 
land, not primarily of a legal character. There was, as 
heretofore, no class of judges with exclusively legal 
duties, and these local courts were merely the body of 
administrative officials in each district, who were 
corporately empowered to try cases with full compe- 
tence. They were the "great men of the town," or 
the local "council," and acted as the local representa- 
tives of the "great council." The number of these 
local courts is entirely uncertain, but the most important 
two known were at Thebes and Memphis. At Thebes 
its composition varied from day to day ; it was appointed 
by the vizier or the Pharaoh, according to the nature 
of the case. All courts were largely made up of 
priests. They did not, however, always enjoy the 
best reputation among the people, for the bribe of the 
rich was often stronger than the justice of the poor man's 
cause, as it frequently is at the present day (BAR, II, 
705; IV, 423/.; SS; PA, II, 8, 6). 

The law to which the poor appealed was undoubtedly 
just. The vizier was obliged to keep it constantly before 
him, contained in forty rolls which were laid out before 
his dais at all his public sessions where they were 
doubtless accessible to all. Unfortunately the code 
which they contained has perished, but of its justice we 
have ample evidence. Even conspirators against the 
king's life were not summarily put to death, but were 
handed over to a legally constituted court to be properly 
tried, and condemned only when found guilty. While 
the great body of this law was undoubtedly very old, 
it continued to grow; thus Haremhab's regulations were 
new law enacted by him. The social, agricultural and 
industrial world of the Nile-dwellers under the Empire 
was therefore not at the mercy of arbitrary whim on the 



200 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

part of either king or court, but was governed by a large 
bodv of long respected law, embodying the principles of 
justice and humanity (BAR, II, 675; 712 /.; 715; III, 
51/.; 65: 1,531; SS). 

188. The southern vizier was the motive power be- 
hind the organization and operation of this ancient 
state. We recall that he went in every morning and 
took council with the Pharaoh on the affairs of the 
country; and the only other check upon his untram- 
melled control of the state was a law constraining him 
to report the condition of his office to the chief treasurer. 
His office was the Pharaoh's means of communication 
with the local authorities, who reported to him in writing 
on the first day of each season, that is, three times a 
year. It is in his office that we discern with unmistak- 
able clearness the complete contralization of all local 
government in all its functions. He was minister of 
war for both army and navy, and in the Eighteenth 
Dynasty at least, "when the king was with the army," 
he conducted the administration at home. He had 
legal control of the temples throughout the country, 
or, as the Egyptian put it, "he established laws in the 
temples of the godsJof the South and the North," so that 
he was minister of ecclesiastical affairs. He exercised 
advisory functions in all the offices of the state; so long 
as his office was undivided with a vizier of the North 
he was grand steward of all Egypt, and there was no 
prime function of the state which did not operate im- 
mediately or secondarily through his office. He was 
a veritable Joseph and it must have been this office which 
the Hebrew narrator had in mind as that to which 
Joseph was appointed. He was regarded by the people 
as their great protector and no higher praise could be 
proffered to Amon when addressed by a worshipper than 



THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION 201 

to call him "the poor man's vizier who does not accept 
the bribe of the guilty" (PA, II, 6, 5 /.). His appoint- 
ment was a matter of such importance that it was con- 
ducted by the king himself, and the instructions given 
him by the monarch display a spirit of kindness and 
humanity, and exhibit an appreciation of statecraft 
surprising in an age so remote. They may perhaps be 
epitomized in the Pharaoh's own words on that occasion, 
"Lo, the true dread of a prince is to do justice. ... Be 
not known to the people and they shall not say, 'He is 
only a man.'" The viziers of the Eighteenth Dynasty 
desired the reputation of hard working, conscientious 
officials, who took the greatest pride in the proper ad- 
ministration of the office. Several of them have left a 
record of their installation, with a long list of the duties 
of the office, engraved and painted upon the walls of 
their Theban tombs, and it is from these that we have 
drawn our account of the vizier (BAR, II, 671 Jf.; 

665,?.). 

189. Such was the government of the imperial age in 
Egypt. In society the disappearance of the landed 
nobility, and the administration of the local districts 
by a vast army of petty officials of the crown, opened 
the way more fully than in the Middle Kingdom for 
innumerable careers among the middle class. These 
opportunities must have worked a gradual change in 
their condition. Thus one official relates his obscure 
origin thus: "I was one whose family was poor and 
whose town was small, but the king recognized me. . . . 
He exalted me more than the royal companions, intro- 
ducing me among the princes" (Leyden, Stela V, I). 
Such possibilities of promotion and royal favour awaited 
success in local administration, for in some local office 
the career of this unknown official in the small town 



202 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

must have begun. There thus grew up a new official 
class. As there was no longer a feudal nobility, the 
great government officials became the nobles of the 
Empire, surrounding the person of the Pharaoh. At 
the bottom the masses who worked the fields and estates, 
the serfs of the Pharaoh, formed so large a portion of 
the inhabitants, that the Hebrew scribe, evidently 
writing from the outside, knew only this class of society 
besides the priests i^Gen. xlvii, 21). These lower strata 
passed away and left little or no trace, but the middle 
class was now able to erect tombs and mortuary stelae 
in such surprising numbers that they furnish us a vast 
mass of materials for reconstructing the life and customs 
of the time. The soldier in the standing army has 
now also become a social class. The free middle class, 
liable to military sen-ice, are called "citizens of the 
army," a term already known in the Middle Kingdom, 
but now very common; so that liability to military 
service becomes the significant designation of this class 
of society. Politically the soldier's influence grows 
with every reign and he soon becomes the involuntary 
reliance of the Pharaoh in the execution of numerous 
civil commissions where formerly the soldier was never 
employed V BAR, II, 274; p. 165, note a; 681). 

190. Side by side with the soldier appears another 
new and powerful class, that of the priesthood. As a 
natural consequence of the great wealth of the temples 
under the Empire, the priesthood becomes a profession, 
no longer merely an incidental office held by a layman, 
as in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. All the priestly 
communities were now for the first time united in a great 
sacerdotal organization embracing the whole land. 
The head of the state temple at Thebes, the High 
Priest of Amon, was the supreme head of this greater 



THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION 203 

body also and his power was thereby increased far 
beyond that of his older rivals at Heliopolis and Mem- 
phis. The temples grew into vast and gorgeous 
palaces, each with its community of priests, and the 
high priest of such a community in the larger centres 
was a veritable sacerdotal prince, ultimately wielding 
considerable political power. 

191. The triumph of a Theban family had brought 
with it the supremacy of Amon. Transformed by the 
solar theology into Amon-Re, and with some attributes 
borrowed from his neighbour, Min of Coptos, he now 
rose to a unique and supreme position of unprecedented 
splendour as the state god. But the fusion of the old 
gods had not deprived Amon alone of his individuality, 
for in the general flux almost any god might possess the 
qualities and functions of the others, although the 
dominant position was still occupied by the sun-god. 

192. The mortuary beliefs of the time are the out- 
growth of tendencies already plainly observable in the 
Middle Kingdom (see p. 150). The magical formula? 
by which the dead are to triumph in the hereafter be- 
come more and more numerous, so that it is no longer 
possible to record them on the inside of the coffin. 
They must be written on papyrus and the roll placed 
in the tomb. As the selection of the most important 
of these texts came to be more and more uniform, the 
"Book of the Dead" began to take form. But magic 
achieved still more. The luxurious lords of the Empire 
no longer look forward with pleasure to the prospect of 
plowing, sowing and reaping in the happy fields of Yaru ; 
a magical statuette placed in the tomb arises and does 
the work otherwise falling upon the deceased. Such 
"Ushebtis," or "respondents," as they were termed, 
were now placed in the necropolis by scores and hun- 



204 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

dreds. A sacred beetle or scarabseus is cut from stone 
and inscribed with a charm, beginning with the signifi- 
cant words, " O my heart, rise not up against me as a 
witness;" and thus an evil life is masked in the judg- 
ment hall of Osiris. Likewise the rolls of the Book of 
the Dead containing, besides all the other charms, also 
the scene of judgment, and especially the welcome ver- 
dict of acquital, are now sold by the priestly scribes to 
anyone with the means to buy; and the fortunate 
purchaser's name is then inserted in the blanks left for 
this purpose throughout the document; thus securing 
for himself the certainty of such a verdict, before it was 
known whose name should be so inserted. The in- 
vention of these devices by the priests was undoubtedly 
as subversive of moral progress in religion as the sale of 
indulgences in Luther's time, and as the priestly litera- 
ture on the hereafter continued to grow, it stifled the 
moral aspirations which had come into the religion of 
Egypt with the ethical influences so potent in the Osiris- 
myth. 

193. The tomb of the noble consists as before of 
chambers hewn in the face of the cliff. In accordance 
with the prevailing tendency it is now filled with imag- 
inary scenes from the next world, while at the same time 
the tomb has become more a personal monument to the 
deceased, and the walls of the chapel bear many scenes 
from his life, especially from his official career, particu- 
larly as a record of the honours which he received from 
the king. Thus the cliffs opposite Thebes, honey- 
combed as they are with the tombs of the lords of the 
Empire, contain whole chapters of the life and history 
of the period, with which we shall now deal. In a 
solitary valley behind these cliffs, as we shall see, the 
kings now likewise excavate their tombs in the limestone 



THE NEW STATE: SOCIETY AND RELIGION 205 

walls and the pyramid is no longer employed. Vast 
galleries are pierced into the mountain, and, passing 
from hall to hall, they terminate many hundreds of feet 
from the entrance in a large chamber, where the body 
of the king is laid in a huge stone sarcophagus. On the 
western plain of Thebes, the plain east of this valley, as 
on the east side of the pyramid, arose the splendid 
mortuary temples of the emperors, of which we shall 
later have occasion to say more. But these elaborate 
mortuary customs are now no longer confined to the 
Pharaoh and his nobles; the necessity for some equip- 
ment in preparation for the hereafter is now felt by all 
classes. The manufacture of such materials, resulting 
from the gradual extension of these customs, has become 
an industry; the embalmers, undertakers and manufac- 
turers of coffins and tomb furniture occupy a quarter at 
Thebes, forming almost a guild by themselves, as they 
did in later Greek times. 

194. Out of the chaos which the rule of foreign lords 
had produced, the new state and the new conditions 
slowly emerged as Ahmose I gradually gained leisure 
from his arduous wars. With the state religion, the 
foreign dynasty had shown no sympathy and the 
temples lay wasted and deserted in many places. We 
find Ahmose therefore in his twenty-second year under- 
taking the repair and equipment of the temples. His 
greatest work, however, remains the Eighteenth Dynasty 
itself, for whose brilliant career his own achievements 
had laid so firm a foundation. Notwithstanding his 
reign of at least twenty-two years, Ahmose must have 
died young (1557 b. c.) for his mother was still living 
in the tenth year of his son and successor, Amenhotep I. 
By him he was buried in the old Eleventh Dynasty 
cemetery at the north end of the western Theban plain 



206 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

in a masonry tomb, which has now long perished. The 
famous jewelry of his mother, stolen from her neigh- 
bouring tomb at a remote date, was found by Mariette 
concealed in the vicinity. The body of Ahmose I, as 
well as this jewelry, are now preserved in the Museum 
at Cairo (BAR, II, 26-8; 33 ft.; 49-51; Masp. Mom. 
roy. 534). 



XIV 



THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOM; THE RISE 
OF THE EMPIRE 

195. The time was not yet ripe for the great achieve- 
ments which awaited the monarchs of the new dynasty 
in Asia. The old Nubian dominion of the Middle 
Kingdom, from the first to the second cataract, was still 
far from final pacification. The Troglodytes, who 
later harassed the Romans on this same frontier, now 
possessed a leader, and Ahmose's campaign against 
them had not been lasting in its effects. Amenhotep I, 
Ahmose's successor, was therefore obliged to invade 
Nubia in force. He captured the rebellious leader, and 
penetrated to the old landmarks of the Middle Kingdom 
frontier at the second cataract. Northern Nubia was 
now placed under the administration of the mayor or 
governor of the old city of Nekhen, which now became 
the northern limit of a southern administrative district, 
including all the territory on the south of it, controlled 
by Egypt, at least as far as northern Nubia, or Wawat. 
From this time the new governor was able to go north 
with the tribute of the country regularly every year 
(BAR, II, 38/.; 41,47/.). 

196. The wars of the Hyksos had given the Libyans 
the opportunity, which they always improved, of push- 
ing in and occupying the rich lands of the Delta, and 
the new Pharaoh was now suddenly called northward 

207 



208 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

to expel them. This mission successfully concluded, 
Amenhotep was at liberty to turn his arms toward Asia. 
Unfortunately we have no records of his Syrian war, but 
he possibly penetrated far to the north, even to the 
Euphrates. In any case he accomplished enough to 
enable his successor to boast of ruling as far as the 
Euphrates, before the latter had himself undertaken any 
Asiatic conquests V BAR, II, 39, 11. 27 /.; 42, 22; 73). 
197. After a reign of at least ten years Amenhotep Fs 
riehlv wrought buildings at Thebes were interrupted by 
his death (BAR, II, 45/.; IV, 513; B, I, 4, No. 3, 164/.). 
Whether he left a son entitled to the throne or not, we 
do not know. His successor, Thutmose I, was the son 
of a woman not of royal blood. Her great son evidently 
owed his accession to the kingship to his marriage with 
a princess of the old line, named Ahinose, through 
whom he could assert a valid claim to the throne. It is 
to him that Egypt owed the conquest of Upper Nubia, 
over four hundred miles beyond the old frontier of the 
Middle Kingdom, to Napata at the foot of the Fourth 
cataract where the southern frontier remained for nearly 
eight hundred years. The forward movement began 
already in the king's second year. In the battle which 
probably took place between the second and third 
cataracts, the Pharaoh himself transfixed the opposing 
chief with his lance. He now pushed on through the 
exceedingly difficult country of the second and third 
cataracts, where his scribes and officers have left a long 
trail of names and titles scratched on the rocks. At the 
Island of Tombos, he emerged from the desolate and 
precipitous cataract country upon the wide and fertile 
valley of the Dongola Province winding along a wide 
curve of uninterrupted river, two hundred and fifty 
miles to the foot of the fourth cataract. At Tombos, 



THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 209 

therefore, on the threshold of the new province he en- 
graved upon the rocks five triumphant stelae, one of 
them bearing a long inscription. These are the earliest 
records above the third cataract. Here also at the 
head of the third cataract, he erected a fortress, and 
garrisoned it with troops from the army of conquest. 
It was now August and he had left Egypt in February or 
March. When he repassed the first cataract, with the 
Nubian chief, whom he had slain, hanging head down- 
ward at the prow of his royal barge, he had been absent 
over a year, But undoubtedly he had reorganized the 
country as a province under a viceroy, and Thure, the 
first viceroy of Nubia, now cleared the ancient canal of 
stones for the return passage of the king through the first 
cataract (BAR, II, 54-60; 67-77; 80; 75; 84 1020-25). 
198. Nubia having now been thoroughly pacified, 
henceforth the Pharaoh looks northward. The char- 
acter of the country along the eastern end of the Medi- 
terranean, which we may call Syria-Palestine, is not such 
as to favor the gradual amalgamation of small and petty 
states into one great nation, as that process took place 
in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. The 
Orontes valley, stretching northward between the two 
Lebanons, is the only extensive region in Syria-Palestine 
not cut up by the hills and mountains, where a strong 
kingdom might develop. The coast is completely 
isolated from the interior by the ridge of Lebanon, while 
in the south, Palestine with its harbourless coast and its 
large tracts of unproductive soil, hardly furnished the 
economic basis for the development of a strong nation. 
Along almost its entire eastern frontier, Syria-Palestine 
merges into the northern extension of the Arabian des- 
ert, save in the extreme north, where the valley of the 
Orontes and that of the Euphrates almost blend. 



210 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

199. The country was settled chiefly by Semites, the 
descendants of an early overflow of population from the 
deserts of Arabia, such as has occurred in historic times 
over and over again. In the north these were Aramae- 
ans, while in the south they may be most conveniently 
designated as Canaanites. In general these peoples 
showed little genius for government, and were totally 
without any motives for consolidation. Divided, more- 
over, by the physical conformation of the country, they 
were organized into numerous city-kingdoms, each 
having not only its own kinglet, but also its own god, 
a local ba'al (Baal) or "lord," with whom was often 
associated a ba'lat or "lady," a goddess like her of 
Byblos. These miniature kingdoms were embroiled in 
frequent wars with one another, each dynast endeav- 
ouring to unseat his neighbour and absorb the latter's 
territory and revenues. Exceeding all the others in 
size was the kingdom of Kadesh, in the Orontes valley, 
in which we should, in the author's opinion, recognize 
the nucleus of the Hyksos empire as already indicated 
(pp. 180 /.). We shall now discern it for two genera- 
tions, struggling desperately to maintain its indepen- 
dence, and only crushed at last by twenty years of 
warfare under Thutmose III. 

200. Some of these kingdoms possessed a high degree 
of civilization. Masters of the art of metal- working 
they made metal vessels, weapons and chariots a great 
industry. Woolen textiles of the finest dye, rich and 
sumptuous in design, issued from their looms. These 
Semites were already inveterate traders, and an ani- 
mated commerce was passing from town to town, where 
the market place was a busy scene of traffic as it is to- 
day. On the scanty shoreward slopes of Lebanon some 
of them, crossing from the interior, had early gained 




MAP II. THE ASIATIC EMPIRE OF EGYPT. 



THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 211 

a footing, to become the Phoenicians of historic times. 
They rapidly subdued the sea and soon developed into 
hardy mariners. In every favourable harbour they 
established their colonies, in Cyprus and Rhodes, along 
the southern litoral of Asia Minor, throughout the 
yEgean, and here and there on the mainland of Greece. 
Everywhere throughout the regions which they reached, 
their w T ares were prominent in the markets. As their 
wealth increased, every harbour along the Phoenician 
coast was the seat of a rich and flourishing city, among 
which Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Arvad and Simyra were the 
greatest, each being the seat of a dynasty. Thus it was 
that in the Homeric poems the Phoenician merchant and 
his wares were proverbial, for the commercial and mari- 
time power enjoyed by the Phoenicians at the rise of the 
Egyptian Empire continued into Homeric times and later. 

201. The civilization which they found in the northern 
Mediterranean was that of the Mycenaean age. Its 
people are termed by the Egyptian monuments Keftyew, 
and so regular was the traffic with these regions that the 
Phoenician craft plying on these voyages were known as 
"Keftyew ships" (BAR, II, 492). All this northern 
region was known to the Egyptians as the "Isles of the 
Sea," for having no acquaintance with the interior of 
Asia Minor, they supposed it to be but island coasts, 
like those of the iEgean. 

202. Much more highly organized than the neigh- 
bouring peoples of Asia, the mature civilization of the 
mighty kingdom on the Nile had from time immemorial 
exerted a powerful influence upon the politically feeble 
states there. There was little or no native art among 
these peoples of the western Semitic world, but they 
were skilful imitators, and the products which their 
fleets marketed throughout the eastern Mediterranean, 



212 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

if not original Egyptian work, were therefore tinctured 
through and through with Egyptian elements. In these 
Phoenician galleys the material civilization of the Orient 
was being gradually disseminated through southern 
Europe and the west. Babylonian influences, while not 
so noticeable in the art of Syria-Palestine, were never- 
theless sufficiently powerful to have introduced there 
the cuneiform system of writing, even among the non- 
Semitic Hittites. Thus Syria-Palestine became common 
ground, where the forces of civilization from the Nile and 
the Euphrates mingled at first in peaceful rivalry, but 
ultimately to meet upon the battlefield. The historical 
significance of this region is found in the inevitable strug- 
gle for its possession between the kingdom of the Nile 
on the one hand and those of the Tigro-Euphrates valley 
and Asia Minor on the other. It was in the midst of 
this struggle that Hebrew national history fell, and in 
its relentless course the Hebrew monarchies perished. 

203. Other non-Semitic peoples were also beginning 
to appear on Egypt's northern horizon. A group of 
warriors of Iran, now appearing for the first time in 
history, had by 1500 b. c. pushed westward to the 
upper Euphrates and established an Aryan dynasty, 
ruling the kingdom of Mitanni in the great westward 
bend of the river, where it approaches most closely to 
the Mediterranean. It was the earliest and western- 
most outpost of the Aryan race. They formed a power- 
ful and cultivated state, which, planted thus on the road 
leading westward from Babylon along the Euphrates, 
effectively cut off the latter from her profitable western 
trade, and doubtless had much to do with the decline in 
which Babylon, under her foreign Kassite dynasty, now 
found herself. Everything thus conspired to favour the 
permanence of Egyptian power in Asia (MAAG). 



THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 213 

204. Under these conditions Thutmose I prepared to 
quell the perpetual revolt in Syria and bring it into such 
complete subjection as he had achieved in Nubia. 
Without serious opposition, the Pharaoh reached 
Naharin, or the land of the " rivers," as the name signi- 
fies, which was the designation of the country from the 
Orontes to the Euphrates and beyond, merging into 
Asia Minor. The battle resulted in a great slaughter of 
the Asiatics, followed by the capture of large numbers 
of prisoners. Somewhere along the Euphrates at its 
nearest approach to the Mediterranean, Thutmose now 
erected a stone boundary-tablet, marking the northern 
and at this point the eastern limit of his Syrian posses- 
sions. Two Pharaohs had now seen the Euphrates, 
the Syrian dynasts were fully impressed with the power 
of Egypt, and their tribute, together with that of the 
Beduin and other inhabitants of Palestine, began to 
flow into the Egyptian treasury. Thus Thutmose I 
was able to begin the restoration of the temples so 
neglected since the time of the Hyksos. The modest 
old temple of the Middle Kingdom monarchs at Thebes 
was no longer in keeping with the Pharaoh's increasing 
wealth and pomp. His chief architect, Ineni, was 
therefore commissioned to erect two massive pylons, 
or towered gateways, in front of the old Amon-temple, 
and between these a columned hall, which was later to 
be intimately identified with the family history of the 
dynasty (BAR, II, 81; 85; 478; 98; 101; 103 /.; 
92-97). 



XV 



THE FEUD OF THE THUTMOSIDS AND THE REIGN OF 
QUEEN HATSHEPSUT 

205. How long Thutmose Ts Asiatic war may have 
occupied him, we do not now know, but at about the 
time of his thirty years' jubilee — the 30th anniversary 
of his appointment to the heirship of the throne — his 
claim upon it was probably weakened by the death of 
his queen, Ahmose, through whom alone he had any 
valid title to the crown. She was a descendant of the 
old Theban princes who had expelled the Hyksos, and 
there was a strong party who regarded the blood of this 
line as alone entitled to royal honours. Her only sur- 
viving child was a daughter, Makere-Hatshepsut, and 
so strong was the party of legitimacy, that they had 
forced the king, years before, at about the middle of his 
reign, to proclaim her his successor, in spite of the 
general disinclination to submit to the rule of a queen. 
Among other children, Thutmose I had also two sons 
by other queens : one, who afterward became Thutmose 
II, was the son of a princess Mutnofret; while the other, 
later Thutmose III, had been born to the king by an 
obscure concubine named Isis. The close of Thutmose 
I's reign is involved in deep obscurity, and the following 
reconstruction is not without its difficulties. When the 
light finally breaks, Thutmose III is on the throne for a 
long reign, the beginning of which had been interrupted 

214 



FEUD OF THE THUTMOSIDS 215 

for a short time by the ephemeral rule of Thutmose II. 
Thus, although Thutmose Ill's reign really began be- 
fore that of Thutmose II, seven-eighths of it falls after 
Thutmose IFs death, and the numbering of the two 
kings is most convenient as it is. As a young prince of 
no prospects, Thutmose III had been placed in the 
Karnak temple as a priest with the rank of prophet. 
Meantime he had in some way gained the hand of the 
beautiful and gifted Hatshepsut, the sole princess of the 
old line. He now had a claim upon the throne, by 
inheritance through his wife. To this legal right the 
priesthood of Anion, who supported him, agreed to add 
that of divine sanction, and under the most dramatic 
circumstances secured his call to the kingship by the 
god himself during state ceremonies in the temple hall 
of Thutmose I. Thutmose Ill's five-fold name and 
titulary were immediately published, and on the third 
of May, in the year 1501, b. c, he suddenly stepped 
from the duties of an obscure prophet of Amon into 
the palace of the Pharaohs (BAR, II, 105; 86-8; 64, 
1. 11; 307; 128-136; 138-148). 

206. Thutmose I was evidently not regarded as a 
source of serious danger, for he was permitted to live on. 
Thutmose III early shook off the party of legitimacy. 
Indeed he allowed Hatshepsut no more honourable title 
than " great or chief royal wife." But the party of 
legitimacy was not to be so easily put off. As a result 
of their efforts Thutmose III was forced to acknowledge 
the coregency of his queen and actually to give her a 
share in the government. Before long her partisans had 
become so strong that the king was seriously hampered, 
and eventually even thrust into the background, and 
the conventions of the court were all warped and dis- 
torted to suit the rule of a woman. Hardly had she 



216 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

begun her independent works and royal monuments, 
especially the great temple of Der el-Bahri, when the 
priestly party of Thutmose III and the party of legit- 
imacy fell victims of a third party, that of Thutmose 
IT, who, allying himself with the old dethroned king, 
Thutmose I, succeeded in thrusting aside Thutmose III 
and Hatshepsut and seizing the crown. Then Thut- 
mose I and II, father and son, began a bitter perse- 
cution of the memory of Hatshepsut, cutting out her 
name on the monuments and placing both their own 
over it wherever they could find it. 

207. News of the enmities within the royal house had 
probably now reached Xubia, and on the very day of 
Thutmose IFs accession, the report of a serious out- 
break there was handed to him. One of his com- 
manders quelled the rising, however, and another 
insurrection in southern Palestine was also successfully 
put down. At this juncture it is probable that the death 
of the aged Thutmose I so weakened the position of the 
feeble and diseased Thutmose II that he made common 
cause with Thutmose III, then apparently living in 
retirement, but of course secretly seeking to reinstate 
himself. In any case we find them together for a brief 
coregency, which was terminated by the death of Thut- 
mose II, after a reign of not more than three years at 
most (Note IV; BAR, II, 119-125; 593-5; MMR, 547). 

208. Thutmose III thus held the throne again, 
although the partisans of Hatshepsut forced him to a 
compromise, by which the queen was recognized as co- 
regent. Matters did not stop here; her party was so 
powerful, that, although they were unable to dispose of 
Thutmose III entirely, he was again relegated to the 
background, while the queen played the leading role 
in the state. Both she and Thutmose III numbered the 



FEUD OF THE THUTMOSIDS: HATSHEPSUT 217 

years of their joint reign from the first accession of 
Thutmose III, as if it had never been interrupted by the 
short reign of Thutmose II. The queen now entered 
upon an aggressive career as the first great woman in 
history of whom we are informed. Her partisans had 
now installed themselves in the- most powerful offices, 
from that of the vizier, chief treasurer, chief architect 
and High Priest of Anion downward. The whole 
machinery of the state was thus in the hands of these 
partisans of the queen. It is needless to say that the 
fortunes, and probably the lives of these men were 
identified with the success and the dominance of Hat- 
shepsut; they therefore took good care that her position 
should be maintained. In every way they were at great 
pains to show that the queen had been destined for the 
throne by the gods from the beginning. In her temple 
at Der el-Bahri, where work was now actively resumed, 
they had sculptured on the walls a long series of reliefs 
showing the birth of the queen. Here all the details of 
the old state fiction that the sovereign should be the 
bodily child of the sun-god were elaborately depicted. 
The artist who did the work followed the current 
tradition so closely that the new-born child appears as 
a boy, showing how the introduction of a woman into 
the situation was wrenching the inherited forms. 
Thutmose I was depicted appointing and acknowledging 
her as queen, or praying for a prosperous reign for his 
daughter. With such devices as these it was sought 
to overcome the prejudice against a queen upon the 
throne of the Pharaohs (BAR, II, 341; 344; 363 ff.; 
348; 388 ff.; 369 ff.; 290; 187 ff.; 198; 215; 237, 
11. 15-16; 243 ff.). 

209. Hatshepsut's first enterprise was, as we 'have 
intimated, to continue the building of her magnificent 



218 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

temple against the western cliffs at Thebes, where her 
father and brother had inserted their names over hers. 
The building was in design quite unlike the great 
temples of the age. It resembled the little terraced 
temple of Nibhepetre-Mentuhotep in a neighbouring 
bay of the cliffs. In a series of three colonnaded ter- 
races it rose from the plain to the level of an elevated 
court, flanked by the massive yellow cliffs, into which 
the holy of holies was cut. The queen found especial 
pleasure in the design of the temple, seeing in it a 
paradise of Amon, and conceived its terraces as the 
"myrrh-terraces" of Punt, the original home of the 
gods. To carry out the design fully it was further 
necessary to plant the terraces with the myrrh trees 
from Punt, and resuming the Red Sea traffic interrupted 
by the Hyksos wars, she dispatched a fleet to Punt to 
secure the myrrh trees (BAR, II, 351, 11. 6 /.; 375; 295; 
287; 285, 11. 5-6; 288). It was the largest expedition 
thither of which we know. Passing from the Nile to 
the Red Sea by means of a canal in the eastern Delta, 
the fleet reached Punt in safety. Besides Egyptian 
merchandise they carried with them a statue of the 
queen, which they erected in Punt (AZ, 42, 91 fj.). 
After a fair return voyage, and without mishap, the 
fleet of fine vessels finally moored again at the docks 
of Thebes. Probably the Thebans had never before 
been diverted by such a sight as now greeted them, when 
the motley array of Puntites and the strange products 
of their far-off country passed through the streets to the 
queen's palace, where the Egyptian commander pre- 
sented them to her majesty. Having planted the trees 
in the temple, the queen boasted, "It was done. . . . 
I have made for him a Punt in his garden, just as he 
commanded me. ... It is large enough for him to walk 








1 - mh±> -- 


«? " " 




9-^r- 


• w >«*> vmo 7bmb.r oTthr IS/iyr ft 






Yards. ^j&j 


^'''C' | fe^T 








Tombs <V.;Cfic Xuigs' 
f.cJfVpRcy) •". 






Tombs- or the 
















>i> .; South'. Astisif ,\ 
















- 


nf.-tjnpiio/y/us tt 


Kvrreiyb/iiz •_ 






4 i." 1 * 






^ ; 

j ** 








J:-Zaur 

' ■'••■ "-".' S:Tonihe 





Map III.— THEBES A 




EXT BUILDINGS 



FEUD OF THE THUTMOSIDS: HATSHEPSUT 219 

abroad in it." Thus the splendid temple was made 
a terraced myrrh-garden for the god, though the 
energetic queen was obliged to send to the end of the 
known world to do this for him. She had all the inci- 
dents of the remarkable expedition recorded in a series 
of splendid reliefs on the upper terrace, where they 
still form one of the great beauties of her temple (BAR, 
11,290; 252/.; 292; 254; 257; 259; 246-295). 

210. This unique temple was in its function the cul- 
mination of a new development in the arrangement and 
architecture of the royal tomb. As we have seen, the 
Pharaoh had gradually abandoned the construction of a 
pyramid, and he now, like his nobles, excavated a 
cliff-tomb with the mortuary temple against the face of 
the cliff before it. Probably for purposes of safety 
Thutmose I then took the radical step of separating the 
cliff-tomb from the mortuary chapel before it. The 
chapel was left upon the plain at the foot of the western 
cliffs, but the burial chamber, with the passage leading 
to it was hewn into the rocky wall of a wild and desolate 
valley lying behind the cliffs, some two miles in a 
direct line westward from the river, and accessible only 
by a long detour northward, involving nearly twice that 
distance. It is evident that the exact spot where the 
king's body was entombed was intended to be kept 
secret, that all possibility of robbing the royal burial 
might be precluded. The new arrangement was such 
that the sepulchre, as in pyramid days, was still behind 
the chapel or temple, which thus continued to be on the 
east of the tomb as before, although the two were now 
separated by the intervening cliffs. The valley, now 
known as the "Valley of the Kings' Tombs," rapidly 
filled with the vast excavations of Thutmose Fs 
successors. It continued to be the cemetery of the 



220 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, and 
over forty tombs of the Theban kings were excavated 
there. Forty-two now accessible form one of the won- 
ders which attract the modern Xile-tourists to Thebes, 
and Strabo speaks of forty which were worthy to be 
visited in his time. Hatshepsut's terraced sanctuary 
was therefore her mortuary temple, dedicated also to 
her father. As the tombs multiplied in the valley 
behind, there rose upon the plain before it temple after 
temple endowed for the mortuary service of the de- 
parted gods, the emperors who had once ruled Egypt. 
Hatshepsut's tomb has in recent times been discovered 
behind her terraced temple, and that of her father is 
near by <BAR, II, 513; 106; 552; 3S9). 

211. Meanwhile Hatshepsut was receiving tribute 
from her wide empire, extending from the upper cata- 
racts of the Nile to the Euphrates. Evidently no serious 
trouble in Asia had as yet resulted from the fact that 
there was no longer a warrior upon the throne of the 
Pharaohs. This energetic woman therefore began to 
employ her new wealth in the restoration of the old 
temoles, which, although two generations had elapsed, 
had not yet recovered from the neglect which they had 
suffered under the Hyksos (BAR, II, 321 ; 296 g. ; "303). 

212. It was now seven or eight years since she and 
Thutmose III had regained the throne, and fifteen years 
since they had first seized it. Thutmose III had never 
been appointed heir to the succession, but his queen had 
enjoyed that honour, and at the thirtieth anniversary of 
her appointment she celebrated her jubilee by the 
erection of a pair of obelisks, which were the customary 
memorial of such jubilees. The queen chose an 
extraordinary location for these monuments, namely, the 
very colonnaded hall of the Karnak temple erected by 



FEUD OF THE THUTMOSIDS: HATSHEPSUT 221 

her father, where her husband Thutmose III had been 
named king by oracle of Anion; although this neces- 
sitated the removal of many of her father's cedar 
columns, besides, of course, unroofing the hall. Sumpt- 
uously overlaid with gold-silver alloy, they towered so 
high above the dismantled hall of Thutmose I that the 
queen recorded a long oath, swearing by all the gods 
that they were each of one block. They were indeed 
the tallest shafts ever erected in Egypt up to that time, 
being ninety seven and a half feet high and weighing 
nearly three hundred and fifty tons each. Nevertheless 
they had been quarried at the first cataract in only 
seven months. One of them still stands, an object of 
constant admiration to the modern visitor at Thebes. 
Two, and possibly four, more of the queen's obelisks 
have perished (BAR II, 317, 11. 6 /.; 318; 376, 1. 28; 
319, 1. 3; 377, 11. 36-38; 315; 304-336; 322 ff.). 

213. With these splendid works at home Hatshepsut's 
power, or that of her party, was drawing to a close. In 
Sinai her mining works went on until her twentieth year. 
Some time between this date and the close of the year 
twenty-one, when we find Thutmose III ruling alone,, 
the great queen must have died. Great though she was,, 
her rule was a distinct misfortune, falling, as it did, 
at a time when Egypt's power in Asia had not yet been 
seriously tested, and Syria was only too ready to revolt. 
Thutmose III was not chivalrous in his treatment of 
her when she was gone. He had suffered too much. 
Burning to lead his forces into Asia, he had been assigned 
to puerile temple functions or his restless energies were 
spent on building his mortuary temple of the western 
plain of Thebes. Around her obelisks in her father's 
hall at Karnak he now had a masonry sheathing built,, 
covering her name and the record of her erection of them 



222 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

on the base. Everywhere from the cataracts to the 
Delta, on the walls of all buildings both her figure and 
her name have been hacked out. Her partisans doubt- 
less all fled. If not they must have met short shrift. 
In all the records of the time, and even in their tombs 
and on their statues, their names and their figures were 
ruthlessly chiselled away. And these mutilated monu- 
ments stand to this day, grim witnesses of the great 
king's vengeance. But in Hatshepsut's splendid temple 
her fame still lives, and the masonry around her Karnak 
obelisk has fallen down, displaying her name and 
records, and exposing the gigantic shaft, to proclaim to 
the modern world the greatness of Hatshepsut (BAR, II, 
337; 338, note/; 348; PPS, p. 19). 






XVI 



THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE: THE WARS 
OF THUTMOSE III 

214. In the year fifteen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III 
still controlled their Asiatic dependencies as far north 
as the Lebanon. From that time until we find him 
marching into Asia, late in the year twenty-two, we are 
not informed of what took place there; but the condition 
which then confronted him, and the course of his subse- 
quent campaigns, makes it evident how matters had 
gone with Egyptian supremacy during the interim. 
Not having seen an Egyptian army for many years, the 
Syrian dynasts grew continually more restless, and 
finding that their boldness called forth no response 
from the Pharaoh, the king of Kadesh had stirred all the 
city-kings of northern Palestine and Syria to accept his 
leadership in a great coalition, in which they at last felt 
themselves strong enough to begin open revolt. Kadesh 
thus assumed its head with a power in which we should 
evidently recognize the surviving prestige of her old- 
time more extended suzerainty. Only southern Pales- 
tine held aloof and remained true to the Pharaoh. Not 
only were "all the allied countries of Zahi," or western 
Syria, in open rebellion against the Pharaoh, but it 
is also evident that the great kingdom of Mitanni, on 
the east of the Euphrates, had done all in her power to 
encourage the rebellion and to support it when once in 

223 



224 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

progress. Against such formidable resources as these, 
then, Thutmose III was summoned to contend, and no 
Pharaoh before his time had ever undertaken so great 
a task. In what condition the long unused Egyptian 
army may have been, or how long it took Thutmose to 
reorganize and prepare it for service, we have no means 
of knowing. The armies of the early Orient were not 
large, and it is not probable that any Pharaoh ever in- 
vaded Asia with more than twenty-five or thirty thousand 
men, while less than twenty thousand is probably nearer 
the usual figure (BAR, II, 137; 162; 416; 616; BK, 
8-11). 

215. Late in his twenty-second year we find Thutmose 
with his army ready to take the field. He marched 
from Tharu, the last Egyptian city on the northeastern 
frontier, about the 19th of April, 1479 b. c. On the 10th 
of May he camped on the southern slopes of the Carmel 
range. Meantime the army of the Asiatic allies, under 
the command of the king of Kadesh, had pushed south- 
ward and had occupied the strong fortress of Megiddo, 
in the plain of Esdraelon, on the north slope of the 
Carmel ridge. This place, which here appears in history 
for the first time, was not only a powerful stronghold, 
but occupied an important strategic position, command- 
ing the road from Egypt between the two Lebanonsto the 
Euphrates, hence its prominent role in Oriental history 
from this time on (BAR, II, 409; 415; 417-419; 439). 

216. Learning now of the enemy's occupation of 
Megiddo, Thutmose called a council of his officers to 
ascertain the most favourable route for crossing the 
ridge and reaching the plain of Esdraelon. Thutmose 
characteristically favoured the direct route, but his 
officers urged that two other roads, involving long de- 
tours to north or south, were more open, while the 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 225 

middle one was a narrow pass. Their objections 
showed a good military understanding of the dangers 
of the pass; but Thutmose swore a round oath that he 
would move against his enemies by the most direct 
route, and they might follow or not as they pleased. 
Accordingly, making his preparations very deliberately, 
he moved into the pass on the thirteenth of May. To 
prevent surprise and also to work upon the courage of 
his army, he personally took the head of the column, 
vowing that none should precede him, but that he would 
go "forth at the head of his army himself, showing the 
way by his own footsteps." Having met only a forepost 
of the enemy on the heights, he disengaged his army in 
safety from the pass, and emerged upon the plain of 
Esdraelon without opposition on the south of Megiddo. 
The Asiatics had thus lost an inestimable opportunity to 
destroy him in detail. Late in the afternoon of the 
same day (the fourteenth), or during the ensuing night, 
Thutmose drew his line around the west side of Megiddo 
and boldly threw out his left wing on the northwest of 
the city. He thus secured, in case of necessity, a safe 
and easy line of retreat westward along the northern- 
most of the three roads crossing Carmel, while at the 
same time his extreme left might cut off the enemy from 
flight northward (BAR, II, 420-428). 

217. Early the next morning, the fifteenth of May, 
Thutmose gave orders to form and move out in order 
of battle. In a glittering chariot of electrum he took 
up his position with the centre; his right or southern 
wing rested on a hill southwest of Megiddo; while, as 
we have seen, his left was northwest of the city. The 
Asiatics in a north and south line barred his way to the 
city. He immediately attacked them, leading the onset 
himself "at the head of his army." The enemy gave 



226 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

way at the first charge, " they fled headlong to Megiddo 
in fear, and many, finding the gates closed against them, 
were drawn up the wall by their friends within. The 
discipline of an Oriental army cannot to this day with- 
stand a rich display of plunder; much less could the host 
of Egypt in the fifteenth century b. c. resist the spoil of 
the combined armies of Syria, although by pushing 
quickly forward they might have captured Megiddo at 
once. It is evident that in the disorganized rout the 
camp of the king of Kadesh fell into the hands of the 
Egyptians, and they brought its rich and luxurious 
furniture to the Pharaoh (BAR, 11,429-433; 413; 616; 
414). 

218. But the stern Thutmose was not to be placated 
by these tokens of victory; he saw only what had been 
lost, and gave orders for the instant investment of the 
city. The season was far enough advanced so that the 
Egyptians foraged on the grain-fields of the plain of 
Esdraelon, while its herds furnished them the fat of the 
land. They were the first host, of whom we have 
knowledge, to ravage this fair plain, destined to be the 
battle-ground of the east and west from Thutmose III 
to Napoleon. But within the walls all was different; 
proper provision for a siege had not been made, and 
famine finally wrought its customary havoc in the 
beleaguered town, which, after sustaining the siege for 
some weeks, at length surrendered. But the king of 
Kadesh was not among the prisoners. To compensate 
for the failure to capture the dangerous king of Kadesh 
himself they secured his family as hostages; for Thut- 
mose says, "Lo, my majesty carried off the wives of 
that vanquished one, together with his children, and 
the wives of the chiefs who were there, together with 
their children." Rich as had been the spoil on the 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 227 

battle-field, it was not to be compared with the wealth 
of the allied kings which awaited the Pharaoh in the 
captured city : nine hundred and twenty-four chariots, 
including those of the kings of Kadesh and Megiddo, 
two thousand two hundred and thirty-eight horses, two 
hundred suits of armour, again including those of the 
same two kings, the gorgeous tent of the king of Kadesh, 
his magnificent household furniture, and among it his 
royal sceptre, a silver statue, perhaps of his god, and an 
ebony statue of himself, wrought with gold and lapis- 
lazuli, besides prodigious quantities of gold and silver 
(BAR, II, 433-437; 441 /.; 596; I Kings, xv, 23). 

219. Thutmose lost no time in marching as far north- 
ward as the hostile strongholds and the lateness of the 
season would permit. He captured three cities on the 
southern slopes of Lebanon. They quickly succumbed. 
Here, in order to prevent another southward advance 
of the still unsubmissive king of Kadesh and to hold 
command of the important road northward between the 
Lebanons, he now built a fortress. He then began the 
reorganization of the conquered territory, supplanting 
the old revolting dynasts, of course, with others who 
might be expected to show loyalty to Egypt. These 
new rulers were allowed to govern much as they pleased, 
if only they regularly and promptly sent in the yearly 
tribute to Egypt. In order to hold them to their 
obligations Thutmose carried off their eldest sons with 
him to Egypt, where they were educated and so treated 
as to engender feelings of friendliness toward Egypt; 
and whenever a king of one of the Syrian cities died 
"his majesty would cause his son to stand in his place." 
The Pharaoh now controlled all Palestine as far north 
as the southern end of Lebanon, and, further inland, 
also Damascus (BAR, II, 548; 434; 402; 467; 436). 



228 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

Early in October Thutmose had reached Thebes. 
It was less than six months since he had left Egypt, and 
he had done all within the limits of the dry season in 
Palestine. With what difficulties such an achievement 
was beset we may learn by a perusal of Napoleon's 
campaign from Egypt through the same country against 
Akko, which is almost exactly as far from Egypt as 
Megiddo. We may then understand why it was that 
Thutmose immediately celebrated three " Feasts of 
Victory " in his capital, each five days long. These 
feasts were made permanent, endowed with an annual 
income of plentiful offerings. At the feast of Opet, 
Anion's greatest annual feast, lasting eleven days, he 
presented to the god the three towns captured in 
southern Lebanon, besides a rich array of magnificent 
vessels of gold, silver and costly stones from the Asiatic 
spoil, and also extensive lands in Upper and Lower 
Egypt, equipped with plentiful herds and with hosts of 
peasant serfs taken from among his Asiatic prisoners. 
Thus was established the foundation of that vast fortune 
of Amon, which now began to grow out of all proportion 
to the increased wealth of other temples (BAR, II, 409; 
549; 550-553; 557 /. ; 543-547; 555; 596). 

220. The great task of properly consolidating the 
empire was now fairly begun; but Egyptian power in 
Asia during the long military inactivity of Hatshepsut's 
reign had been so thoroughly shaken that Thutmose III 
was far from ready, as a result of the first campaign, to 
march immediately upon Kadesh, his most dangerous 
enemy. Moreover, he desired properly to organize 
and render perfectly secure the states already under the 
power of Egypt. In the year twenty-four therefore he 
marched in a wide curve through the conquered 
territorv of northern Palestine and southern Svria, while 




S| ^r **» 

I: P-Temple :| 

I: fcofSethosI. :| -^^ 



I. Pylon 

a i 

RJ- 



Plan IY.-THF 




■0S^- 






Avenue of Sphinx 



PLAN m KARKAJC, 



100 , 200 aoo too 



F KARNAK. 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 229 

the dynasts came to pay their tribute and do him homage 
in "every place of his majesty's circuit where the tent 
was pitched.' ' The news of his great victory of the 
year before had by this time reached Assyria, now just 
rising on the eastern horizon, with her career as yet all 
before her. Her king naturally desired to be on good 
terms with the great empire of the west, and the gifts of 
costly stone, chiefly lapis-lazuli from Babylon, and the 
horses which he sent to Thutmose, so that they reached 
him while on this campaign, were, of course, interpreted 
by the Egyptians as tribute. In all probability no battles 
were fought on this expedition. 

221. Returning to Thebes as before, in October, the 
king immediately planned for the enlargement of the 
Karnak temple, to suit the needs of the empire of which 
he dreamed. As the west end, the real front of the 
temple, was marred by Hatshepsut's obelisks, rising 
from his father's dismantled hall, Thutmose III laid out 
his imposing colonnaded halls at the other, or east end, 
of the temple, where they to-day form one of the great 
architectural beauties of Thebes (Map IV; BAR, II, 100; 
306; 772; 600; 602; 608$.; 447,1.25; 446; 599$.; 
604/.). 

222. The third campaign, of the next year (twenty- 
five) was evidently spent like the first, in organizing the 
southern half of the future Asiatic empire, the northern 
half being still unsubdued (BAR, II, 450-452). No 
records of the fourth campaign have survived, but 
the course of his subsequent operations was such 
that it must have been confined like the others to the 
territory already regained. It had now become 
evident to Thutmose that he could not march 
northward between the Lebanons and operate 
against Kadesh, while leaving his flank exposed to the 



230 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

unsubdued Phoenician cities of the coast. It was like- 
wise impossible to strike Xaharin and Mitanni without 
first destroying Kadesh, which dominated the Orontes 
valley. He therefore planned a series of campaigns, 
directed first against the northern coast, which he might 
then use as a base of operations against Kadesh: and 
this being once disposed of, he could again push in 
from the coast against [Mitanni and the whole Xaharin 
region. He therefore organized a fleet and placed in 
command of it a trusty officer named Xibarnon, who 
had served with his father. Employing the new fleet, 
he transported his army by sea,, and in the year twenty- 
nine, on his fifth campaign, he moved for the first time 
against the northern coast cities, the wealthy commercial 
kingdoms of Phoenicia. The name of the wealthy city 
which Thutmose first took is unfortunately lost, but it 
was on the coast opposite Tunip, which sent it reinforce- 
ments. It must have been a place of considerable im- 
portance, for it brought him rich spoils; and there was 
in the town a temple of Anion, erected by one of Thut- 
mose Ill's predecessors. Thence the Pharaoh moved 
his army southward against the powerful city of Arvad. 
A short siege sufficed to bring the place to terms, and 
with its surrender a vast quantity of the wealth of 
Phoenicia fell into the hands of the Egyptians, who 
spent days of feasting and drunkenness in the rich 
Phoenician vineyards and gardens. The dynasts along 
the coast now came in with their tribute and offered sub- 
missions. Thutmose had thus gained a secure footing 
on the northern coast, easily accessible by water from 
Egypt, and forming an admirable base for operations 
inland, as he had foreseen. He then returned to Egypt, 
possibly not for the first time, by water BAR. II, 779; 
4.57-459; 460-464). 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 231 

223. All was now in readiness for the long planned 
advance upon Kadesh. It had taken five campaigns 
to gain the south and the coast; the sixth was at last 
directed against his long invulnerable enemy. In the 
year thirty the close of the spring rains found Thutmose 
disembarking his army from the fleet at Simyra, by the 
mouth of the Eleutheros, up the valley of which he im- 
mediately marched upon Kadesh. The city lay on the 
west side of the Orontes river, surrounded by its waters 
and those of a tributary at this point, at the north end of 
the high valley between the two Lebanons (Map II). 
An inner moat encircling the high curtain-walls within 
the banks of the rivers reinforced the natural water- 
defences, so that, in spite of its location in a perfectly 
level plain, it was probably the most formidable fortress 
in Syria and commanded the Orontes valley, the only 
route northward in inner Syria. It will be remembered, 
furthermore, that it also dominated the Eleutheros 
valley, the only road inland from the coast for a long 
distance both north and south (BK, 13-21; 49). The 
capture of such a place by siege was an achievement of 
no slight difficulty, but the scanty sources permit us to 
discern only that it was taken after a difficult siege, last- 
ing from early spring to harvest time, during which at 
least one assault was made. The siege continued long 
enough to encourage the coast cities in the hope that 
Thutmose had suffered a reverse. Before the long 
planned advance into Naharin could be undertaken 
the revolting cities of the coast had therefore again to be 
chastised. The rest of this season and all the next, the 
seventh campaign (year 31), were spent in punishing 
the obstinate Arvad, and its neighbour Simyra. Thut- 
mose then sailed from harbour to harbour along the 
coast, displaying his force and thoroughly organizing 



232 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

the administration of the cities. In particular he saw 
to it that every harbour-town should be liberally supplied 
with provisions for his coming campaign in Xaharin. 
On his return to Egypt he found envoys from the ex- 
treme south, probably eastern Nubia, bringing to the 
Pharaoh their tribute, showing that he was maintaining 
an aggressive policy in the far south while at the same 
time so active in the north (BAR, II, 465; 585; 467; 
470-475). 

224. Preparations for the great campaign delayed 
Thutmose until the spring of the year thirty-three, 
when we find him on the march down the Orontes on 
his eighth campaign. Having captured Ketne, he 
fought a battle at the city of Senzar, which he also took. 
Entering Naharin no serious force confronted him 
until he had arrived at "The Height of Wan, on the 
west of Aleppo," where a considerable battle was 
fought. Aleppo itself must have fallen, for the Pharaoh 
could otherwise hardly have pushed on without delay, 
as he evidently did. "Behold his majesty went north, 
capturing the towns and laying waste the settlements of 
that foe of wretched Naharin," who was, of course, the 
king of Mitanni. Egyptian troops were again plunder- 
ing the Euphrates valley, a license which they had not 
enjoyed since the days of their fathers under Thutmose 
I, some fifty years before (BAR, II, 476; 59S; 584; 
581/.; 479)'. 

225. As he advanced northward Thutmose now 
turned slightly toward the Euphrates, in order to reach 
Carchemish. In the battle fought at that city it must 
have been his long unscathed foe, the king of Mitanni, 
whose army Thutmose scattered far and wide, " not one 
looked behind him, but they fled forsooth like a herd of 
mountain goats." This battle at last enabled Thutmose 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 233 

to do what he had been fighting ten years to attain, for 
he now crossed the Euphrates into Mitanni and set up 
his boundary tablet on the east side, an achievement of 
which none of his fathers could boast. But the season 
was now far advanced; a winter in Naharin was im- 
possible. He therefore returned unmolested to the 
west shore, where he found the boundary tablet of his 
father, Thutmose I, and with the greatest satisfaction 
he set up another of his own alongside it. But one 
serious enterprise still awaited him before he could 
return to the coast. After the capture of the city of 
Niy, a little further down the Euphrates, the object of 
the campaign had been accomplished and its arduous 
duties were past. It is now that we behold the great 
king diverting himself in an elephant hunt, in which, but 
for the bravery and adroitness of Amenemhab, a favour- 
ite general, he would probably have lost his life (BAR, 
11,479; 583; 478; 481; 656,11,7/.; 480/.; 588). 

226. Meantime all the local princes and dynasts of 
Naharin appeared at his camp and brought in their 
tribute as a token of their submission. Even far off 
Babylon was now anxious to secure the good-will of the 
Pharaoh, and its king sent him gifts wrought of lapis- 
lazuli. But what was still more important, the mighty 
people of the Kheta, whose domain stretched far away 
into the unknown regions of Asia Minor, sent him a 
rich gift. Thus the Kheta, probably the Biblical 
Hittites, emerge for the first time, as far as we know, 
upon the stage of Oriental history (Note V). On 
Thutmose's arrival at the coast he laid upon the chiefs 
of the Lebanon the yearly obligation to keep the Phoe- 
nician harbours supplied with the necessary provision 
for his campaigns. From any point in this line of 
harbours, which he could reach from Egypt by ship in a 



234 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

few days, he was then able to strike inland without delay 
and bring delinquents to an immediate accounting. 
His sea power was such that the king of Cyprus became 
practically a vassal of Egypt, as later in Saitic times. 
Moreover, his fleet made him so feared in the islands of 
the north that he was able to exert a loose control over 
the eastern Mediterranean, westward an indefinite 
distance toward the iEgean. Likewise the Pharaoh's 
treasury was now receiving the richest contributions 
from his trade with Punt; and it is at some time dur- 
ing these wars that Thutmose is also found in posses- 
sion of the entire oasis region on the west of Egypt 
(BAR, II, 482-486; 763). 

227. The great object for which Thutmose had so 
long striven was now achieved; he had followed his 
fathers to the Euphrates. The kings whom they had 
been able to defeat singly and in succession, he had been 
obliged to meet united, and against the combined 
military resources of Syria and northern Palestine he 
had, in ten years' warfare, forced his way through to the 
north. He might pardonably permit himself some 
satisfaction in the contemplation of what he had accom- 
plished. A pair of enormous obelisks, which had been in 
preparation for his second jubilee, were now erected at 
the Karnak temple and one of them bore the proud 
words "Thutmose, who crossed the great 'Bend of 
Naharin' [the Euphrates] with might and with victory 
at the head of his army." The other obelisk of this 
pair has perished, but this one now stands in Constanti- 
nople. Indeed, all of the great king's obelisks in Egypt 
have either perished or been removed, while the modern 
world possesses a line of them reaching from Constanti- 
nople, through Rome and London to New York (BAR 
II, 382-384; 629-636). 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 235 

228. With such monuments as these before them the 
people of Thebes soon forgot that he who erected them 
was once a humble priest in the very temple where his 
giant obelisks now rose. On its walls, moreover, they 
saw long annals of his victories in Asia, endless records 
of the plunder he had taken, with splendid reliefs 
picturing the rich portion which fell to Amon. In the 
garden of Anion's temple grew the strange plants of 
Syria-Palestine, while animals unknown to the hunter 
of the Nile valley wandered among trees equally un- 
familiar. Envoys from the north and south were con- 
stantly appearing at the court. Phoenician galleys, such 
as the upper Nile had never seen before, delighted the 
eyes of the curious crowd at the docks of Thebes; and 
from these landed whole cargoes of the finest stuffs of 
Phoenicia, gold and silver vessels of magnificent work- 
manship, from the cunning hand of the Tyrian artificer 
or the workshops of distant Asia Minor, Cyprus, Crete 
and the iEgean islands; exquisite furniture of carved 
ivory, delicately wrought ebony, chariots mounted with 
gold and electrum, and bronze implements of war; 
besides these, fine horses for the Pharaoh's stables and 
untold quantities of the best that the fields, gardens, 
vineyards, orchards and pastures of Asia produced. 
Under heavy guard emerged from these ships, too, the 
annual tribute of gold and silver in large commercial 
rings, some of which weighed as much as twelve pounds 
each, while others for purposes of daily trade were of 
but a few grains weight. The amount of wealth which 
thus came into Egypt must have been enormous for those 
times, and on one occasion the treasury was able to 
weigh out some eight thousand nine hundred and forty- 
three pounds of gold-silver alloy. Nubia also, under 
the Egyptian viceroy, was rendering with great regu- 



236 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

larity her annual impost of gold, negro slaves, cattle, 
ebony, ivory and grain; much of the gold in the above 
hoard must have come from the Nubian mines. Similar 
sights diverted the multitudes of the once provincial 
Thebes, when every autumn Thutmose's war-galleys 
moored in the harbour of the town; and the unhappy 
Asiatic captives, bound one to another in long lines, 
were led down the gang planks to begin a life of slave - 
labour for the Pharaoh. With their strange speech and 
uncouth postures the poor wretches were the subject of 
jibe and merriment on the part of the multitude; while 
the artists of the time could never forbear caricaturing 
them, in the gorgeous paintings in which the vizier and 
treasury officials loved to perpetuate such scenes on the 
inner walls of their tomb chapels. Many of them 
found their way into the houses of the Pharaoh's 
favourites and generals; but the larger number were 
immediately employed on the temple estates, the 
Pharaoh's domains, or in the construction of his great 
monuments and buildings. We shall later see how this 
captive labour transformed Thebes (BAR, II, 402 /.; 
760/.; 773; 756-759). 

229. The return of the king every autumn began for 
him a winter, if not so arduous, at least as busily occu- 
pied as the campaigning season in Asia. Immediately 
after his return Thutmose made a tour of inspection 
throughout Egypt for the purpose of suppressing corrup- 
tion and oppression in the local administration. On 
these journeys, too, he had opportunity of observing the 
progress on the noble temples which he was either erect- 
ing, restoring or adorning at over thirty different places 
of which we know, and many more which have perished. 
He revived the long neglected Delta, and from there to 
the third cataract his buildings were rising, strung like 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 237 

gems, along the river. Besides the Nubian sources of 
gold, he organized the other gold country, that on the 
Coptos road, placing it under a "governor of the gold 
country of Coptos." It is evident that every resource 
of his empire was being thus exploited. The increasing 
wealth of the Amon temple demanded reorganization of 
its management, which the king personally accomplished. 
As the fruit of a moment's respite from the cares of 
state, he even handed to his chief of artificers designs 
sketched by his own royal hand for vessels which he 
desired for the temple service (BAR, III, 58; II, 774 /. 
571; 545). 

230. His campaigning was now as thoroughly or- 
ganized as the administration at Thebes. As soon as 
the spring rains in Syria and Palestine had ceased, he 
regularly disembarked his troops in some Phoenician or 
north Syrian harbour. Here his permanent officials had 
effected the collection of the necessary stores from the 
neighbouring dynasts, who were obligated to furnish 
them. His herald or marshal, Intef , accompanied him 
on all his marches, and as Thutmose advanced inland 
Intef preceded him, sought out the palace of the local 
dynast in each town, and prepared it for Thutmose's 
reception. Had it been preserved, the life of these war- 
riors of Thutmose would form a stirring chapter in the 
history of the early East. The career of his general, 
Amenemhab, who rescued the king in the elephant 
hunt, is but a hint of the life of the Pharaoh's follow- 
ers in bivouac and on battlefield, a life crowded to the 
full with perilous adventure and hard- won distinction. 
Such incidents, of course, found their way among the 
common people, and many a stirring adventure from 
the Syrian campaigns took form in folk-tales, told 
with eager interest in the market-places and the streets 



238 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

of Thebes. A lucky chance has rescued one of these 
tales written by some scribe on a page or two of 
papyrus. It concerns one Thutiy, a great general of 
Thutmose, and his clever capture of the city of Joppa 
by introducing his picked soldiers into the town, con- 
cealed in panniers, borne by a train of donkeys. But 
Thutiy was not a creation of fancy, and some of his 
splendid tomb equipment, especially a golden dish 
given him by his king, still survives. But the daily 
records of Thutmose's scribal annalist which might 
have enabled us to follow not only the whole romance 
of Thutmose's personal adventures on the field and 
those of his commanders, but also the entire course 
of his campaigns, have all perished. From these, 
we have upon the wall at Karnak only the capricious 
extracts of a temple scribe, more anxious to set 
forth the spoil and Amon's share therein than to 
perpetuate the story of his king's great deeds. How 
much he has passed over, the biography of Amenemhab 
shows only too well; and thus all that we have of 
the wars of Egypt's greatest commander has filtered 
through the shrivelled soul of an ancient bureaucrat, 
who little dreamed how hungrily future ages would 
ponder his meagre excerpts (BAR, II, 763-771; 577; 
392). 

231. The conquest in Asia was not yet complete. 
The spring of the thirty-fourth year therefore found 
Thutmose again in Zahi on his ninth campaign, punish- 
ing some disaffection, probably in the Lebanon region. 
This year evidently saw the extension of his power in 
the south also; for he secured the son of the chief of 
Irem, the neighbour of Punt, as a hostage; and the 
combined tribute of Nubia amounted to over one hun- 
dred and thirty-four pounds of gold alone, besides the 



THE WARS OF THUfMOSE III 239 

usual ebony, ivory, grain, cattle and slaves (BAR, II, 
489-495). It was now nearly two years since he had seen 
Naharin, and in so short a time its princes had ceased to 
fear his power. They formed a coalition, with some 
prince at its head, possibly the king of Aleppo, whom 
Thutmose's Annals call "that wretched foe of Naharin," 
and together revolted. Thutmose's continual state of 
preparation enabled him to appear promptly on the 
plains of Naharin in the spring of the year thirty-five. 
He engaged the allies in battle at a place called Araina, 
which we are unable to locate with certainly, but it was 
probably somewhere in the lower Orontes valley. Here 
the alliance of the Naharin dynasts was completely 
shattered, and its resources for future resistance de- 
stroyed or carried off by the victorious Egyptians (BAR, 
II, 587; 498-501). 

232. Thutmose's annals for the next two years are 
lost, and we know nothing of the objective of his eleventh 
and twelfth campaigns; but the year thirty-eight found 
him on his thirteenth campaign, chastising southern 
Lebanon, while the next expedition (fourteenth cam- 
paign) carried him from southern Palestine to Syria, 
setting his house in order. On the march the envoys 
of Cyprus and Arrapakhitis met him with gifts. The 
tribute seems to have come in regularly for the next two 
years (forty and forty-one), and again the king of 
" Kheta the Great " sent gifts, which Thutmose, as before, 
records among the "tribute" (BAR, II, 507; 511 /.; 
517; 580; 520-527). 

233. The princes of Syria, sorely chastised as they 
had been, were nevertheless unwilling to relinquish 
finally their independence. Incited by Kadesh, Thut- 
mose's inveterate enemy, they again rose in a final united 
effort to shake off the Pharaoh's strong hand. All 



240 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

Xaharin, especially the king of Tunip, and also some 
of the northern coast cities, had been induced to join 
the alliance. The great king was now an old man, 
probably over seventy years of age, but with his accus- 
tomed promptitude he appeared with his fleet off the 
north coast of Syria in the spring of the year forty-two. 
It was his seventeenth and last campaign. Like his 
first, it was directed against his arch enemy, Kadesh, 
which he now isolated by approaching from the north 
and capturing Tunip first. He then accomplished the 
march up the Orontes to Kadesh without mishap 
and wasted the towns of the region. The king of 
Kadesh knowing that his all was lost unless he 
could defeat Thutmose's army, made a desperate re- 
sistance, but in spite of stratagem, lost the battle 
before the city. Thutmose's siege-lines now closed in 
on the doomed city, the wall was breached, and the 
strongest fortress of Syria was again at the Pharaoh's 
mercy. 

234. Never again as long as the old king lived did the 
Asiatic princes make any attempt to shake off his yoke. 
In seventeen campaigns, during a period of nineteen 
years, he had beaten them into submission, until there 
was no spirit for resistance left among them. With the 
fall of Kadesh disappeared the last vestige of that 
Hyksos power which had once subdued Egypt. Thut- 
mose's name became a proverb in their midst, and 
when, four generations later, his successors failed to 
shield their faithful vassals in Xaharin from the aggres- 
sion of the Kheta, the forsaken unfortunates remembered 
Thutmose's great name, and wrote pathetically to 
Egypt: "Who formerly could have plundered Tunip 
without being plundered by Manakhbiria (Thutmose 
III) ?" But even now, at three score and ten or more, 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 



241 



the indomitable old warrior had the harbours equipped 
with the necessary supplies, and there is little doubt that 
if it had been necessary he would have led his army 
into Syria again. For the last time in Asia he received 
the envoys of the tribute-paying princes in his tent, 
and then returned to Egypt. There the Nubian envoys 
brought him over five hundred and seventy-eight pounds 
of gold from Wawat alone (AL, 41, 6-8; BAR, II, 
531; 533-539; 590). 

235. Twelve years more were vouchsafed the great 
king after he had returned from his last campaign in 
Asia. He still continued his attention to Nubia, sending 
out an expedition thither in the fiftieth year of his reign. 
It was now paying him six to eight hundred pounds of 
gold each year, and his great viceroy, Nehi, was carrying 
on his buildings there at a number of points. A list of 
one hundred and fifteen places which he conquered in 
Nubia is twice displayed on the walls of Karnak (BAR, 
II, 772 ff.; 526/.; 649-652). 

As Thutmose felt his strength failing he made coregent 
his son, Amenhotep II, born to him by Hatshepsut- 
Meretre, a queen of whose origin we know nothing. 
About a year later, on the 17th of March, in the year 
1447 b. c, when he was within five weeks of the end of 
his fifty-fourth year upon the throne, he closed his eyes 
upon the scenes among which he had played so great 
a part (BAR, II, 184; 592). He was buried in his tomb 
in the Valley of the Kings by his son, and his body still 
survives. 

236. The character of Thutmose III stands forth 
with more of colour and individuality than that of any 
king of early Egypt, except Ikhnaton. We see the man 
of a tireless energy unknown in any Pharaoh before or 
since; the man of versatility designing exquisite vases 



242 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

in a moment of leisure; the lynx-eyed administrator, 
who launched his armies upon Asia with one hand and 
with the other crushed the extortionate tax-gatherer; 
the astute politician of many a court crisis, and the first 
great military strategist of the early East (BAR, II, 
664; 570; 452). His reign marks an epoch not only in 
Egypt, but in the whole East as we know it in his age. 
Xever before in history had a single brain wielded the 
resources of so great a nation and wrought them into 
such centralized, permanent and at the same time mobile 
efficiency, that for years they could be brought to bear 
with incessant impact upon another continent. The 
genius which rose from an obscure priestly office to 
accomplish this for the first time in history reminds us 
of an Alexander or a Xapoleon. He built the first real 
empire, and is thus the first character possessed of uni- 
versal aspects, the first world-hero. From the fastnesses 
of Asia Minor, the marshes of the upper Euphrates, the 
islands of the JEgean, the swamps of Babylonia, the 
distant shores of Libya, the oases of the Sahara, the 
terraces of the Somali coast and the upper cataracts of 
the Nile, the princes of his time rendered their tribute 
to his greatness. He thus made not only a world wide 
impression upon his age, but an impression of a new 
order. His commanding figure, towering like an em- 
bodiment of righteous penalty among the trivial plots 
and treacherous schemes of the petty Syrian dynasts, 
must have clarified the atmosphere of Oriental politics 
as a strong wind drives away miasmic vapours. The 
inevitable chastisement of his strong arm was held in 
awed remembrance by the men of Xaharin for three 
generations. His name was one to conjure with, and 
centuries after his empire had crumbled to pieces it was 
placed on amulets as a word of power. It should be a 



THE WARS OF THUTMOSE III 



243 



matter of gratification to us of the western world that 
on either shore of the western ocean, one of this king's 
greatest monuments now rises as a memorial of the 
world's first empire-builder.* 

* Of his two Heiiopolitan obelisks, one is on the Thames 
Embankment in London, and the other in Central Park, New 
York City. 






XVII 

THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 

237. The imperial age was now at its full noontide 
in the Nile valley. The old seclusiveness had totally 
disappeared, the wall of partition between Asia and 
Africa, already shaken by the Hyksos, was now com- 
pletely broken down by the wars of Thutmose III. 
Traditional limits disappeared, the currents of life 
eddied no longer within the landmarks of tiny kingdoms, 
but pulsed from end to end of a great empire, embracing 
many kingdoms and tongues, from the upper Nile to the 
upper Euphrates. The wealth of Asiatic trade, cir- 
culating through the eastern end of the Mediterranean, 
which once flowed down the Euphrates to Babylon, was 
thus diverted to the Nile Delta, now united by canal 
with the Red Sea. All the world traded in the Delta 
markets. Assyria was still in her infancy and Baby- 
lonia no longer possessed any political influence in the 
west. The Pharaoh looked forward to an indefinite 
lease of power throughout the vast empire which he 
had conquered. 

- Of his administration in Asia we know very little. 
The whole region was under the general control of a 
"governor of the north countries." To bridle the 
turbulent Asiatic dynasts it was necessary permanently 
to station troops throughout Syria-Palestine in strong- 
holds named after the Pharaoh, under deputies with 

244 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 245 

power to act as the Pharaoh's representatives. Re- 
mains of an Egyptian temple found by Renan at 
Byblos doubtless belong to this period. As we have 
seen, the city-kings were allowed to rule their little 
states with great freedom as long as they paid the 
annual tribute with promptness and regularity. When 
such a ruler died, his son, who had been educated at 
Thebes, was installed in the father's place. The 
Asiatic conquests were therefore rather a series of 
tributary kingdoms than provinces, which indeed repre- 
sent a system of foreign government only roughly fore- 
shadowed in the rule of the viceroy of Kush (AL; BAR, 
II, 457-458; 548; 787; Rouge, Revue Arch, n. s. vii, 
1863, pp. 194 ff.). 

238. As so often in similar empires of later age, when 
the great king died, the tributary princes revolted. Thus 
Amenhotep II had reigned as coregent but a year when 
his father died, and the storm broke. All Naharin, in- 
cluding the Mitanni princes, and probably also the 
northern coast cities, were combined, or at least simul- 
taneous, in the uprising. With all his father's energy 
the young king prepared for the crisis and marched into 
Asia against the allies, who had collected a large army. 
The south had evidently not ventured to rebel, but from 
northern Palestine on the revolt was general. Leav- 
ing Egypt with his forces in April of his second year 
(1447 b. c), Amenhotep was in touch with the enemy in 
northern Palestine early in May, and immediately fought 
an action at Shemesh-Edom against the princes of 
Lebanon. In this encounter he led his forces in person, 
as his father before him had so often done, and mingled 
freely in the hand-to-hand fray. With his own hand he 
took eighteen prisoners and sixteen horses. The enemy 
was routed. By early June he had dispersed the allies 



246 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

of Naharin, captured seven of their dynasts in Tikhsi, 
retaken Niy, and rescued his beleaguered garrison in 
Ikathi. As he reached his extreme advance, which 
probably surpassed his father's, he set up a boundary 
tablet, as his father and grandfather had done. His 
return was a triumphal procession as he approached 
Memphis, driving before him over five hundred and 
fifty of the north Syrian lords, with their women, horses 
and chariots, and a treasure of nearly sixteen hundred 
and sixty pounds of gold in the form of vases and vessels, 
besides nearly one hundred thousand pounds of copper. 
Proceeding to Thebes the seven kings of Tikhsi were 
hung head downward on the prow of his royal barge as 
he approached the city. He personally sacrificed them 
in the presence of Amon and hanged their bodies on the 
walls of Thebes, reserving one for a lesson to the Nubians, 
as we shall see (BAR, II, 184; 780-790; 792, 1. 4; 796 /. ; 
800,11.4-5; S04, 11. 2-3). 

r^ 239. The young Pharaoh now directed his attention 
to the other extremity of his empire. He dispatched an 
expedition into Xubia, bearing the body of the seventh 
king of Tikhsi, which was hung up on the wall of Napa- 
ta, just below the fourth cataract, in the region of Karoy, 
the southern limit of Egyptian administration. Here 
Amenhotep set up tablets marking his southern frontier, 
and beyond these there was no more control of the rude 
Nubian tribes than was necessary to keep open the 
trade-routes from the south and prevent the barbarians 
from becoming so bold as to invade the province in 
plundering expeditions. Thenceforth, as far as we 
know, he was not obliged to invade either Asia or Nubia 
/again (BAR, II, 1025; S00; 791-798). 

*■ 240. Personally, we are able to discern little of 
Amenhotep II, but he seems to have been a worthy son 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 247 

of the great king. Physically he was a very powerful 
man, and claims in his inscriptions that no man could 
draw his bow, which curiously enough was found in his 
tomb. It is this circumstance which furnished Hero- 
dotus with the legend that Cambyses was unable to 
draw the bow of the king of Ethiopia. Few or no 
remnants of his fine buildings at Karnak, Memphis and 
Heliopolis have survived, but in Nubia, especially at 
Kummeh and Amada, more has escaped. Dying about 
1420 b. c, after a reign of some twenty-six years, 
Amenhotep II was interred like his ancestors in the 
valley of the kings' tombs, where his body rests to this 
day, though even now a prey to the clever tomb-robbers 
of modern Thebes, who in November, 1901, forced the 
tomb and cut through the wrappings of the mummy in 
their search for royal treasure on the body of their 
ancient ruler. Their Theban ancestors in the same 
craft, however, had three thousand years ago taken 
good care that nothing should be left for their descend- 
ants (BAR, II, 803-806; 792, note d; 507 /. ; IV, 499 ff.). 
241. Amenhotep II was followed by his son, Thut- 
mose IV. It is possible that this prince was not at first 
designed to be his father's successor, if we may believe 
a folk-tale, in circulation some centuries later, and now 
recorded on the huge granite stela between the forelegs 
of the Great Sphinx. He was early called upon to 
maintain the empire in Asia, and invaded Naharin, 
returning with the usual captives and plunder, besides 
a cargo of cedar for the sacred barge of Amon at 
Thebes. His nobles now called him "Conqueror of 
Syria," and the tribute of the Syrian princes was regu- 
larly sent in. To confirm his position there, Thutmose 
evidently desired a friend in the north, for he sent to 
Artatama, the Mitannian king, and secured his daughter 



24S THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

in marriage. She probably received an Egyptian name, 
Mutemuya, and became the mother of the next king of 
Egypt, Amenhotep III. A firm alliance with Mitanni 
was thus formed, which forbade all thought of future 
conquest by the Pharaoh east of the Euphrates. A 
friendly alliance was also cemented with Babylonia. 
The suppression of a serious revolt in northern Nubia, 
in his eighth year, concludes the known wars of Thut- 
mose IV. It is probable that he did not long survive 
this war, and his most notable monument from this 
period is the greatest of all obelisks, a monument left 
unfinished by his grandfather Thutmose III, at Thebes, 
and now standing before the Lateran in Rome (BAR, 
11,810-815; 819-822; 824; 826; 829; 830 #.; 838; AL, 
1,1.63; 21, 16-18). 

242. The son who succeeded him was the third of the 
Amenhoteps and the last of the great emperors. He 
was but the great grandson of Thutmose III, but with 
him the high tide of Egyptian power was already slowly 
on the ebb, and he was not the man to stem the tide. 
Already as crown prince, or at least early in his reign, he 
married a remarkable woman of untitled parentage, 
named Tiy. There is not a particle of evidence to prove 
her of foreign birth, as is so often claimed. In celebra- 
tion of the marriage, Amenhotep issued a large number 
of scarabs, or sacred beetles, caned in stone and 
engraved with a record of the event, in which the unti- 
tled parentage of his queen frankly follows her name. 
From the beginning the new queen exerted a powerful 
influence over Amenhotep, and he immediately inserted 
her name in the official caption placed at the head of 
royal documents. Her power continued throughout his 
reign, and was the beginning of a remarkable era, char- 
acterized by the prominence of the queens in state 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 249 

affairs and on public occasions, a peculiarity which we 
find only under Amenhotep III and his immediate suc- 
cessors. The significance of these events we shall later 
dwell upon (BAR, II, 861 /.) 

243. In the administration of his great empire 
Amenhotep III began well. The Asiatics gave him no 
trouble at his accession, and he ruled in security and 
unparalleled splendour. Towards the close of his 
fourth year, however, trouble in Nubia called him 
south. It was so far up river that he was able to levy 
forces for its suppression among the northern Nubians, 
a striking evidence of the very Egyptianized character 
of lower Nubia. Amenhotep marched southward for 
a month, taking captives and spoil as he went, and 
arriving finally at the land of Uneshek, perhaps above 
the cataracts. This marked his extreme southern ad- 
vance. His frontier, however, was certainly not essen- 
tially in advance of that of his father. This was the 
last great invasion of Nubia by the Pharaohs. As far 
as the fourth cataract the country was completely sub- 
jugated, and as far as the second cataract largely Egyp- 
tianized, a process which now went steadily forward. 
Egyptian temples had now sprung up at every larger 
town, and the Egyptian gods were worshipped therein; 
the Egyptian arts were learned by the Nubian craftsmen, 
and everywhere the rude barbarism of the upper Nile 
was receiving the stamp of Egyptian culture. Never- 
theless the native chieftains, under the surveillance of 
the viceroy, were still permitted to retain their titles and 
honours, and doubtless continued to enjoy at least a 
nominal share in the government (BAR, II, 852-854; 
850; 847/.; 889; 845; 1037; 1035-1041). 

244. In Asia Amenhotep enjoyed unchallenged su- 
premacy. All the powers: Babylonia, Assyria, Mitan- 



250 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

ni and Alasa-Cyprus, were exerting every effort to gain 
the friendship of Egypt. A scene of world polities, such 
as is unknown before in history, now unfolds before us. 
From the Pharaoh's court as the centre radiate a host 
of lines of communication with all the great peoples of 
the age. The Tell el-Amarna letters, perhaps the most 
interesting mass of documents surviving from the early 
East, have preserved to us this glimpse across the king- 
doms of hither Asia as one might see them on a stage, 
each king playing his part before the great throne of the 
Pharaoh. The letters, some three hundred in number, 
written on clay tablets in the Babylonian cuneiform, 
were discovered in 1888 at Tell el-Amarna, from which 
the correspondence takes its name. They date from 
the reign of Amenhotep III and that of his son and suc- 
cessor, Amenhotep IV, or Ikhnaton, being correspond- 
ence of a strictly official character between these Pha- 
raohs on the one hand, and on the other the kings of 
Babylonia, Nineveh, Mitanni, Alasa (Cyprus) and the 
Pharaoh's vassal kings of Syria-Palestine. Five letters 
survive from the correspondence of Amenhotep III 
with Kadashman-Bel (Kallimma-Sin), king of Baby- 
lonia, one from the Pharaoh and the others from 
Kadashman-Bel. The Babylonian king is constantly 
in need of gold and insistently importunates his brother 
of Egypt to send him large quantities of the precious 
metal, which he says is as plentiful as dust in Egypt 
according to the reports of the Babylonian messengers. 
Considerable friction results from the dissatisfaction of 
Kadashman-Bel at the amounts with which Amenhotep 
favours him. He refers to the fact that Amenhotep had 
received from his father a daughter in marriage, and 
makes this relationship a reason for further gifts of 
gold. As the correspondence goes on another marriage 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 251 

is negotiated between a daughter of Amenhotep and 
Kallimma-Sin or his son. 

245. Similarly Amenhotep enjoys the most intimate 
connection with Shuttarna, the king of Mitanni, the 
son of Artatama, with whom his father, Thutmose IV, 
had sustained the most cordial relations. Indeed 
Amenhotep was perhaps the nephew of Shuttarna, from 
whom he now, in his tenth year, received a daughter, 
named Gilukhipa, in marriage. On the death of Shut- 
tarna the alliance was continued under his son, Dush- 
ratta, from whom Amenhotep later received, as a wife 
for his son and successor, a second Mitannian princess, 
Tadukhipa, the daughter of Dushratta (AL, 7; 1-5; 17; 
BAR, II, 866 /.). 

246. Similarly Amenhotep sent a gift of twenty 
talents of gold to the king of Assyria, and gained his 
friendship also. The vassalship of the king of Alasa- 
Cyprus continued, and he regularly sent the Pharaoh 
large quantities of copper, save when on one occasion 
he excuses himself because his country had been visited 
by a pestilence. So complete was the understanding 
between Egypt and Cyprus that even the extradition of 
the property of a citizen of Cyprus who had died in 
Egypt was regarded by the two kings as a matter of 
course (AL, 23, 30 ft. ; 25, 30 ff.). 

247. Thus courted and flattered, the object of diplo- 
matic attention from all the great powers, Amenhotep 
found little occasion for anxiety regarding his Asiatic 
empire. The Syrian vassals were now the grandsons 
of the men whom Thutmose III had conquered; they 
had grown thoroughly habituated to the Egyptian 
allegiance, and it was not without its advantages. An 
Egyptian education at the Pharaoh's capital had, 
moreover, made him many a loyal servant among the 



252 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

children of the dynasts. They protest their fidelity to the 
Pharaoh on all occasions, and their letters were intro- 
duced by the most abject and self-abasing adulation. 
They are "the ground upon which thou treadest, the 
throne upon which thou sittest, the foot-stool of thy feet " ; 
even "thy dog"; and one is pleased to call himself the 
groom of the Pharaoh's horse. The garrisons in the 
larger towns, consisting of infantry and chariotry, are 
no longer solely native Egyptians, but to a large extent 
Nubians and Sherden, perhaps the ancestors of the 
historical Sardinians. From now T on they took service 
in the Egyptian army in ever larger and larger num- 
bers. These forces of the Pharaoh were maintained 
by the dynasts, and one of their self-applied tests of 
loyalty in writing to the Pharaoh was their readiness and 
faithfulness in furnishing supplies. Syria thus enjoyed 
a stability of government which had never before been 
hers. The roads were safe from robbers, caravans were 
convoyed from vassal to vassal, and a word from the 
Pharaoh was sufficient to bring any of his subject 
princes to his knees. The payment of tribute was as 
regular as the collection of taxes in Egypt itself. But 
in case of any delay a representative of the Pharaoh, 
who was stationed in the various larger towns, needed 
but to appear in the delinquent's vicinity to recall the 
unfulfilled obligation. Amenhotep himself was never 
obliged to carry on a war in Asia. On one occasion he 
appeared at Sidon, but one of the vassal princes later 
wrote to Amenhotep's son: "Verily, thy father did not 
march forth, nor inspect the lands of his vassal princes " 
(AL, 138, 4-13; 149, 1-7; 87, 62-64). 

248. Under such circumstances Amenhotep was at 
leisure to devote himself to those enterprises of peace 
which have occupied all emperors under similar condi- 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 253 

tions. Trade now developed as never before. The 
Nile was alive with the freight of all the world, flowing 
into it from the Red Sea fleets and from long caravans 
passing back and forth through the Isthmus of Suez, 
bearing the rich stuffs of Syria, the spices and aromatic 
woods of the East, the weapons and chased vessels of 
the Phoenicians, and a myriad of other things, which 
brought their Semitic names into the hieroglyphic and 
their use into the life of the Nile-dwellers. Parallel 
with the land traffic through the isthmus were the routes 
of commerce on the Mediterranean, thickly dotted with 
the richly laden galleys of Phoenicia, converging upon 
the Delta from all quarters and bringing to the markets 
of the Nile the decorated vessels of damascened bronzes 
from the Mycenaean industrial settlements of the 
iEgean. The products of Egyptian industry were like- 
wise in use in the palace of the sea-kings of Cnossos, in 
Rhodes, and in Cyprus, where a number of Egyptian 
monuments of this age have been found. Scarabs and 
bits of glazed ware with the names of Amenhotep II, 
Amenhotep III or Queen Tiy have also been discovered 
on the mainland of Greece at Mycenae. The northern 
Mediterranean peoples were feeling the impact of 
Egyptian civilization with more emphasis than ever 
before. In Crete, Egyptian religious forms had been 
introduced, in one case under the personal leadership 
of an Egyptian priest bearing an Egyptian sistrum. 
Mycenaean artists were powerfully influenced by the in- 
coming products of Egypt. Egyptian landscapes ap- 
pear in their metal work, and the lithe animal forms in 
instantaneous postures, caught by the pencil of the 
Theban artist, were now common in Mycenae. The 
superb decorated ceilings of Thebes likewise appear in 
the tombs of Mycenae and Orchomenos. Even the pre- 



254 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

Greek writing of Crete shows traces of the influence of 
the hieroglyphics of the Nile. The men of the My- 
cenaean world, the Keftvew, were now a familiar sight 
upon the streets of Thebes, where the wares which they 
offered were also modifying the art of Egypt. The 
plentiful silver of the north now came in with the 
northern strangers in great quantities, and, although 
under the Hyksos the baser metal had been worth twice 
as much as gold, the latter now and permanently became 
the more valuable medium. The ratio was now about 
one and two-thirds to one, and the value of silver 
steadily fell until Ptolemaic times (third century B. c. on), 
when the ratio was twelve to one. Such trade required 
protection and regulation. Against the bold Lycian 
pirates Amenhotep was obliged to develop a marine 
police which constantly patrolled the coast of the 
Delta. Here and at all frontiers custom houses were 
also maintained, and all merchandise not consigned to 
the king was dutiable (AL, 87, 62-64; 28; 29; 32;. 33; 
BAR, II, 916, 11. 33 /.). 

249. The influx of slaves, chiefly of Semitic race, 
still continued, and the king's chief scribe distributed 
them throughout the land and enrolled them among 
the tax-paying serfs. As this host of foreigners inter- 
married with the natives, the large infusion of strange 
blood began to make itself felt in a new and composite 
type of face, if we may trust the artists of the day. The 
incalculable wealth which had now been converging 
upon the coffers of the Pharaoh for over a century also 
began to exert a profound influence, which, as under 
like conditions, in later history, was far from wholesome. 
On New Year's Day the king presented his nobles with 
a profusion of costly gifts which would have amazed the 
Pharaohs of the pyramid-age. The luxury and display 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 255 

of the metropolis supplanted the old rustic simplicity 
and sturdy elemental virtues. A noble of the landed 
class from the time of the Amenemhets or the Sesos- 
trises, could he have walked the streets of Thebes in 
Amenhotep Ill's reign, would almost have been at a 
loss to know in what country he had suddenly found him- 
self; while his own antiquated costume, which had 
survived only among the priests, would have awakened 
equal astonishment among the fashionable Thebans 
of the day. He would not have felt less strange than a 
noble of Elizabeth's reign upon the streets of modern 
London. Where once was a provincial village he 
would now have found elegant chateaus and luxurious 
villas, with charming gardens and summer-houses 
grouped about vast temples, such as the Nile-dweller 
had never seen before (BAR, II, 916, 11. 31-33, 36; 
801 If.). 

250. The wealth and the captive labour of Asia and 
Nubia were being rapidly transmuted into noble archi- 
tecture, on a scale of size and grandeur surpassing all 
precedent, and at Thebes a new fundamental chapter in 
the history of the world's architecture was being daily 
written. Amenhotep supported his architects with all 
his unparalleled resources. There were among them 
men of the highest gifts, like "Amenhotep, son of 
Hapu," whose wisdom circulated in Greek some twelve 
hundred years later among the " Proverbs of the Seven 
Wise Men, " till it gained him a place among the gods. 
(BAR, II, 911). Despite the vast dimensions of the im- 
perial buildings, the smaller of the two forms of temple 
which now developed is not less effective than the larger. 
It was a simple rectangular cella or holy of holies, 
thirty or forty feet long and fourteen feet high, with a 
door at each end, surrounded by colonnades, the whole 



256 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

being flat-roofed and raised upon a base of about half 
the height of the temple walls. With the door looking 
out between two graceful columns, and the facade 
happily set in the retreating vistas of the side colonnades, 
the whole is so finely proportioned and boldly conceived 
that the trained eye immediately recognizes the hand of 
a master who appreciated and depended upon simple, 
fundamental lines of structural origin and significance. 
The other and larger type of temple, which now found 
its highest development, differs strikingly from the one 
just discussed; and perhaps most fundamentally in the 
fact that its colonnades are all within and not visible 
from the outside. The holy of holies at the rear is 
surrounded, as of old, by a series of chambers, now 
larger than before, as rendered necessary by the rich and 
elaborate ritual which had arisen. Before it is a large 
colonnaded hall, often called the hypostyle, while in 
front of this hall lies an extensive forecourt surrounded 
by a columned portico. In front of this court rise two 
towers (together called a "pylon"), which form the 
facade of the temple. Their outer walls incline inward, 
they are crowned by a hollow cornice, and the great door 
of the temple opens between them. While the masonry, 
which is of sandstone or limestone, does not usually 
contain large blocks, huge architraves, thirty or forty 
feet long and weighing one or two hundred tons, are not 
unknown. Nearly all the surfaces, except those on the 
columns, are carved with reliefs, the outside showing the 
king in battle, while on the inside he appears in the 
worship of the gods, and all surfaces with slight excep- 
tion were highly coloured. Before the vast double 
doors of cedar of Lebanon mounted in bronze, rose, one 
on either side, a pair of obelisks, towering high above 
the pylon-towers, while colossal statues of the king, each 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 257 

hewn from a single block, were placed with backs to the 
pylon, on either side of the door. In the use of these 
elements and this general arrangement of the parts, 
already common before Amenhotep's reign, his archi- 
tects now created a radically new type, destined to sur- 
vive in frequent use to this day as one of the noblest 
forms of architecture. 

251. At Luxor, the old southern suburb of Thebes, 
his architects laid out a superb forecourt of the temple 
of Amon, in front of which they planned a new and 
more ambitious hall than had ever been attempted 
before. The great hall was laid out with a row of 
gigantic columns, yet displaying faultless proportions 
ranged on either side the central axis. These, the lofti- 
est columns yet attempted, with capitals of the graceful 
spreading papyrus-flower type, were higher than those 
ranged on both sides of the middle, thus producing a 
higher roof over a central aisle or nave and a lower roof 
over the side aisles, the difference in level to be filled 
with grated stone windows in a clear-story. Thus were 
produced the fundamental elements in basilica and 
cathedral architecture. Unfortunately the vast hall 
was unfinished at the death of the king, and the whole 
stands to-day a mournful wreck of an unfinished work 
of art, the first example of a now universal type of great 
architecture, for which we are indebted to Egypt and 
the Theban architects of Amenhotep III. 

252. Amenhotep now proceeded to give the great 
buildings of the city a unity which they had not before 
possessed. Approaching the gorgeous pylon which he 
set up in front of the Karnak temple, an avenue led up 
from the river between two tall obelisks, which flanked 
a colossal portrait statue of the Pharaoh, hewn from a 
single block sixty-seven feet long. Through the beauti- 



258 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

ful gardens, with which he united Karnak and Luxor, 
avenues of sculptured rams connected the great temples. 
The general effect must have been imposing in the 
extreme; the brilliant hues of the polychrome architect- 
ure, with columns and gates overwrought in gold, and 
floors overlaid with silver, the whole dominated by tower- 
ing obelisks clothed in glittering metal, rising high above 
the rich green of the nodding palms and tropical foli- 
age which framed the mass, or mirrored in the surface of 
the temple lake — all this must have produced an im- 
pression both of gorgeous detail and overwhelming 
grandeur, of which the sombre ruins of the same build- 
ings, impressive as they are, offer little hint at the 
present day (BAR, II, 903; 917). 

253. Thebes was thus rapidly becoming a worthy 
seat of empire, the first monumental city of antiquity. 
Nor did the western plain on the other side of the river, 
behind which the conquerors slept, suffer by comparison 
with the new dories of Karnak and Luxor. Along the 
foot of the rugged cliffs, from the modest chapel of 
Amenhotep I on the north, there stretched southward in 
an imposing line the mortuary temples of the emperors. 
At the south end of this line, but a little nearer the river y 
Amenhotep III now erected his own mortuary sanctuary, 
the largest temple of his reign, the prodigal magnificence 
of which defies description. But this sumptuous build- 
ing, probably the greatest work of art ever wrought in 
Egypt, has vanished utterly. Only the two weather- 
beaten colossi which guarded the entrance still look out 
across the plain, one of them still bearing the scribblings 
in Greek of curious tourists in the times of the Roman 
Empire who came to hear the marvellous voice which 
issued from it every morning (BAR, II, 904 ff.; 878 //.). 

254. Adorned with such works as these the western 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 259 

plain of Thebes was a majestic prospect as the observer 
advanced from the river, ascending Amenhotep's avenue 
of sculptured jackals, between the two seven-hundred 
ton colossi of the king, towering above the temple. 
On the left, behind the temple and nearer the cliffs, 
appeared a palace of the king of rectangular wooden 
architecture in bright colours; very light and airy, and 
having over the front entrance a gorgeous cushioned 
balcony with graceful columns, in which the king showed 
himself to his favourites on occasion. Innumerable 
products of the industrial artist which fill the museums 
of Europe indicate with what tempered richness and 
delicate beauty such a royal chateau was furnished and 
adorned. Magnificent vessels in gold and silver, with 
figures of men and animals, plants and flowers rising 
from the rim, glittered on the king's table among 
crystal goblets, glass vases, and gray porcelain vessels 
inlaid with pale blue designs. The walls were covered 
with woven tapestry which skilled judges have declared 
equal to the best modern work. Besides painted pave- 
ments depicting animal life, the walls also were adorned 
with blue glazed tiles, the rich colour of which shone 
through elaborate designs in gold leaf, while glazed 
figures were employed in encrusting larger surfaces. All 
this was done with fine and intelligent consideration of 
the whole colour scheme. The fine taste and the 
technical skill required for all such supplementary 
works of the craftsman were now developed to a point 
of classical excellence, beyond which Egyptian art never 
passed. 

255. Sculpture also flourished under such circum- 
stances as never before. While there now developed 
an attention to details which required infinite patience 
and nicety, such arduous application did not hamper the 



260 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

fine feeling of which these Eighteenth Dy nasty sculptors 
were capable. They thus interpreted and expressed 
individuality with a keen insight, a subtle refinement 
and an individual power, which endued their portraits 
with a personality and a winning grace far surpassing 
all earlier works. The perfection attained in the 
sculpture of animal forms by the artists of this time 
marks the highest level of achievement attained by 
Egyptian art herein, and Ruskin has even insisted with 
his customary conviction that the two lions of Amen- 
hotep's reign, now in the British Museum, are the finest 
embodiment of animal majesty which has survived to 
us from any ancient people. Especially in relief were 
the artists of this age masters. In a fragment now in 
the Berlin Museum, the abandoned grief of the two 
sons of the High Priest of Memphis as they follow their 
father's body to the tomb, is effectively contrasted with 
the severe gravity and conventional decorum of the 
great ministers of state behind them, who themselves 
are again in striking contrast with a Beau Brummel of 
that day, as he affectedly arranges the perfumed curls 
of his elaborate wig. Here across thirty-five centuries 
there speaks to us a maturity in the contemplation of 
life which finds a sympathetic response in every culti- 
vated observer. This fragmentary sketch belongs to a 
class of work totally lacking in other lands in this age. 
It is one of the earliest examples of sculpture exhibiting 
that interpretation of life and appreciation of individual 
traits (often supposed to have arisen first among the 
sculptors of Greece), in which art finds its highest 
expression. 

256. Now, too, the Pharaoh's deeds of prowess in- 
spired the sculptors of the time to more elaborate 
compositions than had ever before been approached. 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 261 

The battle scenes on the noble chariot of Thutmose IV 
exhibit a complexity in drawing and composition un- 
precedented, and this tendency continues in the Nine- 
teenth Dynasty. Of the painting of the time, the best 
examples were in the palaces, and these being of wood 
and sun-dried brick, have perished, but a fine percep- 
tion, which enabled the artist in his representation of 
animals and birds to depict instantaneous postures, is 
already observable, reaching its highest expression in 
the next reign. In such an age literature doubtless 
throve, but chance has unfortunately preserved to us 
little of the literature of the Eighteenth Dynasty. 
There is a triumphant hymn to Thutmose III, and we 
shall read the remarkable sun-hymn of Ikhnaton; but 
of narrative, song and legend, which must have flour- 
ished from the rise of the Empire, our surviving docu- 
ments date almost exclusively from the Nineteenth 
Dynasty. 

257. Near his palace in western Thebes Amenhotep 
laid out an exclusive quarter which he gave to his queen 
Tiy. He excavated a large lake in the enclosure about 
a mile long and over a thousand feet wide, and at the 
celebration of his coronation anniversary in his twelfth 
year he opened the sluices for filling it, and sailed out 
upon it in the royal barge with his queen, in a gorgeous 
festival "fantasia." Such festivals were now common 
in Thebes, and enriched the life of the fast growing 
metropolis with a kaleidoscopic variety which may be 
only compared with similar periods in Babylon or in 
Rome under the emperors. The religious feasts of the 
seventh month were celebrated with such opulent 
splendour that the month quickly gained the epithet, 
"That of Amenhotep," a designation which still sur- 
vives among the natives of modern Egypt, who employ 



262 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

it without the faintest knowledge of the imperial ruler, 
their ancestor, whose name is perpetuated in it. 

258. Among the king's favourite diversions was the 
hunt, which he practised on an unprecedented scale. 
He slew as many as seventy-six wild cattle in one expedi- 
tion, and in the first ten years of his reign he had slain one 
hundred and two lions. In celebration of these exploits 
and of such events as the dedication of the sacred lake 
the king issued each time a series of commemorative 
scarabs (see p. 248). It will be seen that in these things 
a new and modern tendency was coming to its own. 
The divine Pharaoh is constantly being exhibited in 
common human relations, the affairs of the royal house 
are made public property, the name of the queen, not 
even a woman of royal birth, is constantly appearing at 
the head of official documents side by side with that of 
the Pharaoh. In constant intercourse with the nations 
of Asia he is gradually forced from his old superhuman 
state, suited only to the Nile, into less provincial and 
more modern relations with his neighbours of Babylon 
and Mitanni, who in their letters call him "brother.'' 
This lion-hunting, bull-baiting Pharaoh is far indeed 
from the godlike and unapproachable immobility of his 
divine ancestors. Whether consciously or not he had 
assumed a modern stand-point, which must inevitably 
lead to sharp conflict with the almost irresistible inertia 
of tradition in an Oriental country (BAR, II, 865; S6S 
/.; 863/.; 880, note a; 893$.). 

259. Presiding over the magnificence of Thebes, the 
now aging Amenhotep had celebrated his third jubilee 
when ominous signs of trouble appeared on the northern 
horizon. Mitanni was invaded by the Hittites (Kheta), 
and the provinces of Egypt on the lower Orontes were 
not spared. The situation was complicated by the 



THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT 263 

•connivance of treacherous vassals of the Pharaoh, who 
were themselves attempting the conquest of territory on 
their own account, even threatening Ubi, the region of 
Damascus. While the Hittites thus secured a footing in 
northern Naharin of the greatest value in their further 
plans for the conquest of Syria, an invasion of the 
Khabiri, desert Semites, such as had periodically inun- 
dated Syria and Palestine from time immemorial, was 
also now taking place. It was of such proportions that 
it may fairly be called an immigration. Before Amen- 
liotep Ill's death it had become threatening, and thus 
Hibaddi of Byblos later wrote to Amenhotep Ill's son : 
" Since thy father returned from Sidon, since that time 
the lands have fallen into the hands of the Khabiri" 
(BAR, II, 870-873; AL, 16, 30-37; 138 rev. 11. 5, 18- 
31, 37; 83, 28-33; 94, 13-18; 69, 71-73). 

260. Under such ominous conditions as these the old 
Pharaoh, whom we may well call "Amenhotep the 
Magnificent," drew near his end. His brother of 
Mitanni, with whom he was still on terms of intimacy, 
probably knowing of his age and weakness, sent the 
captured image of Ishtar of Nineveh for the second 
time to Egypt, doubtless in the hope that the far-famed 
goddess might be able to exorcise the evil spirits which 
were causing Amenhotep's infirmity and restore the old 
king to health. But all such means were of no avail, and 
about 1375 b. c, after nearly thirty-six years upon the 
throne, "Amenhotep the Magnificent" passed away, 
and was buried with the other emperors, his fathers, in 
the Valley of the Kings' Tombs (AL, 20). 



XVIII 

THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKKN'ATOX 

261. No nation ever stood in direr need of a strong 
and practical ruler than did Egypt at the death of Amen- 
hotep III. Yet she chanced to be ruled at this fatal 
crisis by a young dreamer, who, in spite of unprece- 
dented greatness in the world of ideas, was not fitted to 
cope with a difficult situation demanding an aggressive 
man of affairs and a skilled military leader. The con- 
flict of new forces with tradition was, as we have seen, 
already felt by his father. The task before him was 
such manipulation of these conflicting forces as might 
atuafly give reasonable play to the new and modern 
tendency, but at the same time to conserve enough of the 
old to prevent a catastrophe. It was a problem of 
practical statesmanship. His mother, Tiy, and his 
queen, Xofretete, perhaps a woman of Asiatic birth, and 
a favourite priest,. Eye. the husband of his childhood 
nurse, formed his immediate circle. The first two were 
given a prominent share in the government, and in a 
manner quite surpassing his father's similar tendency, 
he constantly appeared in public with both his mother 
and his wife. With such effeminate counsellors about 
him, instead of gathering the army so sadly needed in 
Xaharin, Aruenhotep IV immersed himself heart and 
soul in the thought of the time, and the philosophizing 
theology of the priests was of more importance to him 

2^4 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 265 

than all the provinces of Asia. In such contemplations 
he gradually developed ideals and purposes which make 
him the most remarkable of all the Pharaohs, and the 
first individual in human history. 

262. The profound influence of Egypt's imperial 
position had not been limited to the externals of life, to 
the manners and customs of the people, to the rich and 
prolific art, but had extended likewise to the thought of 
the age. Even before the conquests in Asia the priests 
had made great progress in the interpretation of the 
gods, and they had now reached a stage in which, like 
the Greeks, they were importing semi-philosophical 
significance into the myths, such as these had of course 
not originally possessed. The interpretation of a god 
was naturally suggested by his place or function in the 
myth. Thus Ptah, the artificer-god of Memphis, had 
been from the remotest ages the god of the architect and 
craftsman, to whom he communicated plans and designs 
for architectural works and the products of the industrial 
arts. Contemplating this god, the Memphite priest, 
little used as his mind was to abstractions, found a 
tangible channel, moving along which he gradually 
gained a rational and with certain limitations a philoso- 
phical conception of the world. The workshop of the 
Memphite temple, where, under Ptah's guidance, were 
wrought the splendid statues, utensils and offerings for 
the temple, expands into a world, and Ptah, its lord, 
grows into the master-workman of the universal work- 
shop. As he furnishes all designs to the architect and 
craftsman, so now he does the same for all men in all 
that they do; he becomes the supreme mind; he is 
mind, and all things proceed from him. Gods and men, 
the world and all that is in it first existed as thought in 
his mind; and his thoughts, like his plans for buildings 



266 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

and works of art, needed but to be expressed in spoken 
words to take concrete form as material realities. 
Thus the efficient force by which this intelligence put 
his designs into execution was his spoken "word," and 
this primitive " logos" is undoubtedly the incipient 
germ of the later logos-doctrine which found its origin 
in Egypt. Early Greek philosophy may also have 
drawn upon it (AZ, 39, 39 ^-)- 

263. Similar ideas were now being propagated re- 
garding all the greater gods of Egypt, but the activity 
of such a god had been limited, in their thinking, to the 
confines of the Pharaoh's domain, and the world of 
which they thought meant no more. From of old the 
Pharaoh was the heir of the gods and ruled the two 
kingdoms of the upper and lower river which they had 
•once ruled. Thus they had not in the myths extended 
their dominion beyond the river valley. But under the 
Empire all this is changed, the god goes where the 
Pharaoh's sword carries him; the advance of the Pha- 
raoh's boundary-tablets in Nubia and Syria is the ex- 
tension of the god's domain. Thus, for king and priest 
alike, the world was becoming only a great domain of 
the god. The theological theory of the state is simply 
that the king receives the world that he may deliver it 
to the god, and he prays for extended conquests that the 
dominion of the god may be correspondingly extended. 
It can be no accident that the notion of a practically 
universal god arose in Egypt at the moment when he 
was receiving universal tribute from the world of that 
day. Similarly the analogy of the Pharaoh's power 
unquestionably operated powerfully with the Egyptian 
theologian at this time ; for as in the myth-making days 
the gods were conceived as Pharaohs ruling the Nile 
valley, because the myth-makers lived under Pharaohs 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 267 

who so ruled; so now, living under Pharaohs who 
ruled a world-empire, the priest of the imperial age had 
before him in tangible form a world-dominion and a 
world-concept, the prerequisite of the notion of the 
world-god. Conquered and organized and governed, 
it had now been before him for two hundred years, and 
out of the Pharaoh-ruled world he gradually began to see 
the world-god (BAR, II, 770; 959,1. 3; 1000; III, 80). 
264. While many local gods, especially Amon claimed 
precedence as the state god, none of the old divinities of 
Egypt had been proclaimed the god of the Empire, 
although in fact the priesthood of Heliopolis had gained 
the coveted honour for their revered sun-god, Re, 
who indeed enjoyed the best historical title to the dis- 
tinction. Already under Amenhotep III an old name 
for the material sun, " Aton," had come into prominent 
use, where the name of the sun-god might have been 
expected. The sun-god, too, had now and again been 
designated as "the sole god" by Amenhotep Ill's con- 
temporaries. Under the name of Aton, Amenhotep IV 
introduced the worship of the supreme god. While he 
made no attempt to conceal the identity of his new 
deity with the old sun-god, Re, it was not merely sun- 
worship; the word Aton was employed in place of the 
old word for "god" (nuter), and the god is clearly dis- 
tinguished from the material sun. To the old sun- 
god's name is appended the explanatory phrase " under 
his name: 'Heat which is in the Sun [Aton],'" and he 
is likewise called "lord of the sun [Aton]." The king, 
therefore, was deifying the vital heat which he found 
accompanying all life. Thence, as we might expect, 
the god is stated to be everywhere active by means of 
his " rays." In his age of the world it is perfectly certain 
that the king could not have had the vaguest notion of 



268 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

the physico-chemical aspects of his assumption any more 
than had the early Greeks in dealing with a similar 
thought. The outward symbol of his god, a disk in the 
heavens, darting earthward numerous diverging rays 
which terminate in hands, each grasping the symbol of 
life, broke sharply with tradition, but it was capable of 
practical introduction in the many different nations 
making up the empire, and could be understood at a 
glance by any intelligent foreigner (BAR, II, 869; 945; 
934,1. 2; 987, note e). 

265. The new god could not dispense with a temple, 
and early in the new king's reign arose a stately sanctuary 
of Aton called "Gem-Aton" between Karnak and 
Luxor, in a new quarter now called " Brightness of 
Aton the Great." Although the other gods were still 
tolerated as of old, it was nevertheless inevitable that the 
priesthood of Amon should view with growing jealousy 
the brilliant rise of a strange god in their midst. The 
priesthood of Amon was now a rich and powerful body. 
Besides being supreme head of the national sacerdotal 
organization, their High Priest was often grand vizier 
and wielded the widest political power. They had 
installed Thutmose III as king, and could they have 
supplanted with one of their own tools the young 
dreamer who now held the throne they would of course 
have done so at the first opportunity. But besides the 
prestige of his great line, Amenhotep IV possessed 
unlimited personal force of character, and he was of 
course supported in his opposition of Amon by the older 
priesthoods of the north at Memphis and Heliopolis, 
long jealous of this interloper, the obscure Theban god, 
who had never been heard of in the north before the 
rise of the Middle Kingdom. A conflict to the bitter 
end, with the most disastrous results to the Amonite 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 269 

priesthood ensued. Exasperated by opposition the 
young Pharaoh broke with the priesthoods; including 
that of Amon, they were dispossessed, the official temple- 
worship of the various gods throughout the land ceased, 
and their names were erased wherever they could be 
found upon the monuments. Even the word "gods" 
was not permitted to appear anywhere/ and the walls 
of the temples at Thebes were painfully searched that 
wherever the compromising word appeared it might be 
blotted out. What was worse, as the name of the 
king's father, Amenhotep, contained the name of Amon, 
the young king was placed in the unpleasant predica- 
ment of being obliged to cut out his own father's name 
in order to prevent the name of Amon from appearing 
"writ large" on all the temples of Thebes. And then 
there was the embarrassment of the king's own name, 
likewise Amenhotep, "Amon rests," which could not 
be spoken or placed on a monument. It was of neces- 
sity also banished, and the king assumed in its place 
the name "Ikhnaton," which means "Spirit of Aton" 
(BAR, II, 935; 942, note b; 937; 944-947). 

266. Thebes was now compromised by too many old 
associations to be a congenial place of residence for so 
radical a revolutionist. As he looked across the city 
and beheld the vast monuments raised to Amon by his 
fathers, the sight could hardly have stirred pleasant 
memories in the heart of the young reformer. A 
doubtless long contemplated plan was therefore under- 
taken. Aton, the god of the empire, should possess 
exclusively his own city in each of the three great 
divisions of the empire: Egypt, Asia and Nubia, and 
the god's Egyptian city should be made the royal resi- 
dence. It must have been an enterprise requiring some 
time, but the three cities were duly founded. The 



270 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

Aton-city of Nubia was located on the west side of the 
river at the foot of the third cataract, in the heart of the 
Egyptian province (Note VI). It was named "Gem- 
Aton" after the Aton-temple in Thebes. In Syria the 
Aton-city is unknown, but Ikhnaton will not have done 
less for Aton there than his fathers had done for Amon. 
In the sixth year, shortly after he had changed his name, 
the king was already living in his own Aton-city in 
Egypt. He chose as its site a fine bay in the cliffs about 
one hundred and sixty miles above the Delta and 
nearly three hundred miles below Thebes. He called 
it Akhetaton, "Horizon of Aton," and it is known in 
modern times as Tell el-Amarna. In addition to the 
town, the territory around it was demarked as a domain 
belonging to the god, and included the plain on both 
sides of the river. In the cliffs on either side, fourteen 
large stelas, one of them no less than twenty-six feet in 
height, were cut into the rock, bearing inscriptions 
determining the limits of the entire sacred district around 
the city. As thus laid out the district was about eight 
miles wide from north to south, and from twelve to over 
seventeen miles long from cliff to cliff. Besides this 
sacred domain the god was endowed with revenues from 
other lands in Egypt and Nubia, and probably also in 
Syria. The royal architect, Bek, was sent to the first 
cataract to procure stone for the new temple, or we 
should rather say temples, for no less than three were 
now built in the new city, one for the queen mother, Tiy, 
and another for the Princess Beketaton ("Maid- 
servant of Aton"), beside the state temple of the king 
himself. Around the temples rose the palace of the 
king and the chateaus of his nobles. Many a scene of 
splendour is now discernible in the beautiful city, as 
when the king publicly demits the office of High Priest 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 271 

of Aton and confers it with rich gifts upon Merire, one 
of the royal favourites. Again we behold the king pro- 
ceeding to the temple in his chariot, accompanied by 
his four daughters and a gorgeous retinue, while he re- 
ceives there the first dues from its revenues (BAR, II r 
949-972; 973 ff.; 1016-1018; 1000; 982; AZ, 40, 106 fi.). 
267. It becomes more and more evident that all that 
was devised and done in the new city and in the propa- 
gation of the Aton faith is directly due to the king and 
bears the stamp of his individuality. A king who was 
deliberately attempting the annihilation of the gods — 
one who did not hesitate to erase his own father's name 
on the monuments in order to destroy Amon, the great 
foe of his revolutionary movement, was not one to 
stop half way, and the men about him must have been 
involuntarily carried on at his imperious will. But 
Ikhnaton understood enough of the old policy of the 
Pharaohs to. know that he must hold his party by 
practical rewards, and the leading partisans of his 
movement, like Merire, enjoyed liberal bounty at his 
hands. The reason which they give, as they boast 
of his favour, is significant. Thus the general of the 
king's army, Mai, says: "My lord has advanced me 
because I have carried out his teaching, and I hear his 

word without ceasing How prosperous is he 

who hears thy teaching of life ! ** On state occasions , 
instead of the old stock phrases, with innumerable 
references to the traditional gods (which it mustTiave 
been very awkward for them to cease using), every noble 
who would enjoy the king's favour was evidently 
obliged to show his familiarity with the Aton faith and 
the king's position in it by a liberal use of its current 
phrases and allusions. Even the Syrian vassals were 
wise enough to make their dispatches pleasant reading 



272 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

by glossing them with appropriate recognition of the 
supremacy of the sun-god. Although there must have 
been a nucleus of men who really appreciated the ideal 
aspects of the king's teaching, it is evident that many 
were chieflv influenced by "the loaves and the fishes " 
(BAR, II, 994, 11. 17 /.; 995, 11. 21 /.; 985; 987; 994, 
11. 16 /.; 1002 /.). 

268. Indeed there was one royal favour which must 
have been welcome to them all without exception. 
This was the beautiful cliff-tomb which the king com- 
manded his craftsmen to hew out of the eastern cliffs 
for each one of his favourites. The "eternal house" 
was no longer disfigured with hideous demons and 
grotesque monsters which should confront the dead in 
the future life; and the magic paraphernalia necessary 
to meet and vanquish the dark powers of the nether 
world, which filled the tombs of the old order at Thebes, 
were completely banished. The tomb now became a 
monument to the deceased; the walls of its chapel bore 
fresh and natural pictures from the life of the people in 
Akhetaton, particularly the incidents in the official 
career of the dead man, and preferably his intercourse 
with the king. Thus the city of Akhetaton is now 
better known to us from its cemetery than from its 
ruins. Throughout these tombs the nobles take delight 
in reiterating, both in relief and inscription, the intimate 
relation between Aton and the king. Over and over 
again they show the king and the queen together stand- 
ing under the disk of Aton, whose rays, terminating in 
hands, descend and embrace the royal pair (BAR, II, 
996; 1012; 1000, 1. 5; 991, 1. 3; 1010, 1. 3; AL, 149, 
6 ff. and often). 

269. It is in these tombs that the nobles have en- 
graved the two hymns to Aton composed by the king. 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 273 

Of all the monuments left by this unparalleled revolu- 
tion, these hymns are by far the most remarkable; and 
from them we may gather an intimation of the doctrines 
which the speculative young Pharaoh had sacrificed so 
much to disseminate. The titles of the separate 
strophes are the addition of the present author, and in 
the translation no attempt has been made to do more 
than to furnish an accurate rendering. The one 
hundred and fourth Psalm of the Hebrews shows a 
notable similarity to our hymn both in the thought and 
the sequence, so that it seems desirable to place the most 
.noticeably parallel passages side by side. 

The Splendour of Aton 

Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven, 

O living Aton, Beginning of life! 

When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven, 

Thou fillest every land with thy beauty; 

For thou art beautiful, great, glittering, high over the earth; 

Thy rays, they encompass the lands, even all thou hast made. 

Thou art Re, and thou hast carried them all away captive; 

Thou bindest them by thy love. 

Though thou art afar, thy rays are on earth; 

Though thou art on high, thy footprints are the day. 

Night 

When thou settest in the west- Thou makest darkness and it 

ern horizon of heaven, is night, 

The world is in darkness like W'herein all the beasts of the 

the dead. forest do creep forth. 

They sleep in their chambers, The young lions roar after their 
Their heads are wrapt up, prey; 

Their nostrils stopped, and They seek their meat from God. 

none seeth the other. (Psalm 104, 20-21.) 

Stolen are all their things, that 

are under their heads, 
While they know it not. 
Every lion cometh forth from 

his den, 
All serpents, they sting. 
Darkness reigns (?), 
The world is in silence, 
He that made them has gone 

to rest in his horizon. 



274 



THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 



Day and Max 



Bright is the earth, 

When thou risest in the hori- 
zon, 

When thou shinest as Aton by- 
day. 

The darkness is banished, 

When thou sendest forth thy 
rays, 

The Two Lands [Egypt] are in 
daily festivity, 

Awake and standing upon 
their feet, 

For thou hast raised them up. 

Their limbs bathed, they take 
their clothing; 

Their arms uplifted in adora- 
tion to thy dawning. 

Then in all the world, they do 
their work. 



The sun ariseth, they get them 

away, 
And lay them down in their 

dens. 
Man goeth forth unto his work, 
And to his labour until the 

evening. 

(Psalm 104, 22-23.) 



Day axd the Animals and Plants 

All cattle rest upon their herbage, 

All trees and plants nourish, 

The birds nutter in their marshes, 

Their wings uplifted in adoration to thee. 

All the sheep dance upon their feet, 

All winged things fly, 

They live when thou hast shone upon them. 

Day and the Waters 



The barques sail up-stream 

and down-stream alike. 
Every highway is open because 

thou hast dawned. 
The fish in the river leap up 

before thee, 
And thy rays are in the midst 

of the great sea. 



Creation 



Yonder is the sea, great and 
wide, 

Wherein are things creeping in- 
numerable 

Both small and great beasts. 

There go the ships; 

There is leviathan, whom thou 
hast formed to sport with 
him. 

(Psalm 104, 25-26.) 

of Man 



Thou art he who createst the man-child in woman, 

Who makest seed in man, 

Who givest life to the son in the body of his mother, 

W T ho soothest him that he may not weep, 

A nurse [even] in the womb. 

Who giveth breath to animate every one that he maketh. 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 275 

When he cometh forth from the body, 
. . . on the day of his birth, 
Thou openest his mouth in speech, 
Thou suppliest his necessities. 

Creation of Animals 

When the chicklet crieth in the egg-shell, 

Thou givest him breath therein, to preserve him alive. 

When thou hast perfected him 

That he may pierce the egg, 

He cometh forth from the egg, 

To chirp with all his might; 

He runneth about upon his two feet, 

When he hath come forth therefrom. 



The Whole Creation 



O lord, how manifold are thy 
works! 

In wisdom hast thou made 
them all; 

The earth is full of thy creat- 
ures. 

(Psalm 104, 24.) 



How manifold are all thy 

works! 
They are hidden from before 

us, 
O thou sole god, whose powers 

no other possesseth.* 
Thou didst create the earth ac- 
cording to thy desire. 
While thou wast alone: 
Men, all cattle large and small, 
All that are upon the earth, 
That go about upon their feet; 
All that are on high, 
That fly with their wings. 
The countries of Syria and 

Nubia, 
The land of Egypt; 
Thou settest every man in his 

place, 
Thou suppliest their necessities. 
Every one has his possessions, 
And his days are reckoned. 
Their tongues are divers in 

speech, 
Their forms likewise and their 

skins, 
For thou -divider, hast divided 

the peoples. 

Watering the Earth 

Thou makest the Nile in the Nether World, 

Thou bringest it at thy desire, to preserve the people alive. 



* The other hymns frequently say, 
is no other." 



O thou sole god, beside whom there 



276 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

O lord of them all, when feebleness is in them, 

O lord of every house, who risest for them, 

O sun of day, the fear of every distant land, 

Thou makest [also] their life. 

Thou hast set a Nile in heaven, 

That it may fall for them, 

Making floods upon the mountains, like the great sea; 

And watering their fields among their towns. 

How excellent are thy designs, O lord of eternity! 

The Nile in heaven is for the strangers, 

And for the cattle of every land, that go upon their feet; 

But the Nile, it cometh from the X ether World for Egypt. 

Thus thy rays nourish every garden, 

"When thou risest they live, and grow by thee. 

The Seasons 

Thou makest the seasons, in order to create all thy works: 

Winter bringing them coolness, 

And the heat [of summer likewise]. 

Thou hast made the distant heaven to rise therein, 

In order to behold all that thou didst make, 

"While thou wast alone. 

Rising in thy form as living Aton, 

Dawning, shining afar off and returning. 

Beauty Due to Light 

Thou makest the beauty of form, through thyself alone. 

Cities, towns and settlements, 

On highway or on river, 

All eyes see thee before them, 

For thou art Aton of the day over the earth. 

Revelation to the King 

Thou art in my heart, 

There is no other that knoweth thee, 

Save thy son Ikhnaton. 

Thou hast made him wise in thy designs 

And in thy might. 

The world is in thy hand, 

Even as thou hast made them. 

"When thou hast risen, they live: 

When thou settest, they die. 

For thou art duration, beyond thy mere limbs, 

By thee man liveth, 

And their eyes look upon thy beauty, 

Until thou settest. 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 277 

All labour is laid aside, 

When thou settest in the west; 

When thou risest, they are made to grow 

for the king. 

Since thou didst establish the earth, 

Thou hast raised them up for thy son, 

Who came forth from thy limbs, 

The king, living in truth, 

The lord of the Two Lands Nefer-khepru-Re, Wan-Re, 

The son of Re, living in truth, lord of diadems, 

Ikhnaton, whose life is long; 

[And for] the great royal wife, his beloved, 

Mistress of the Two Lands, Nefer-nefru-aton, Nofretete, 

Living and nourishing for ever and ever. 



270. In this hymn the universalism of the Empire finds 
full expression, and the royal singer sweeps his eye from 
the far-off cataracts of the Nubian Nile to the remotest 
lands of Syria. He grasped the idea of a world- 
dominator, as the creator of nature, in which the king 
saw revealed the creator's beneficent purpose for all his 
creatures, even the meanest; the birds fluttering about 
in the lily-grown Nile-marshes to him seemed to be up- 
lifting their wings in adoration of their creator; and even 
the fish in the stream leaped up in praise to God. It is 
his voice that summons the blossoms and nourishes the 
chicklet or commands the mighty deluge of the Nile. 
He called Aton, "the father and the mother of all that 
he had made," and he saw in some degree the goodness 
of that All-Father as did he who bade us consider the 
lilies. He perceived the universal sway of God in his 
fatherly care of all men alike, irrespective of race or 
nationality, and to the proud and exclusive Egyptian he 
pointed to the all-embracing bounty of the common 
father of humanity, even placing Syria and Nubia 
before Egypt in his enumeration. It is this aspect of 
Ikhnaton's mind which is especially remarkable; he is 
alike the first prophet and the first wise-man of history. 



278 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

271. While Ikhnaton thus recognized clearly the 
power, and to a surprising extent, the beneficence of 
God, there is not here a very spiritual conception of the 
deity nor any attribution to him of ethical qualities be- 
yond those already long attributed to the gods. Never- 
theless, there is in this "teaching," a constant emphasis 
upon "truth" such as is not found before nor since. 
The king always attaches to his name the phrase "liv- 
ing in truth," and that this phrase was not meaning- 
less is evident in his daily life. Thus his family life was 
open and unconcealed before the people. He took the 
greatest delight in his children and appeared with them 
and the queen, their mother, on all possible occasions, 
as if he had been but the humblest scribe in the Aton- 
temple. He had himself depicted on the monuments 
while enjoying the most familiar and unaffected inter- 
course with his family, and whenever he appeared in 
the temple to offer sacrifice, the queen and the daughters 
she had borne him participated in the service. All that 
was natural was to him "true," and he never failed 
practically to exemplify this belief, however radically he 
was obliged to disregard tradition. 

272. Such a principle unavoidably affected the art of 
the time in which the king took great interest. Bek, 
his chief sculptor, appended to his title the words, 
"whom his majesty himself taught." Thus the artists 
of his court were taught to make the chisel and the brush 
tell the story of what they actually saw. The result was 
a simple and beautiful realism that saw more clearly 
than ever any art had seen before. They caught the 
instantaneous postures of animal life; the coursing 
hound, the fleeing game, the wild bull leaping in the 
swamp; for all these belonged to the "truth," in which 
Ikhnaton lived. The king's person, as we have inti- 



THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION OF IKHNATON 279 

mated, was no exception to the law of the new art, and 
the monuments of Egypt now bore what they had never 
borne before, a Pharaoh not frozen in the conventional 
posture demanded by the traditions of court propriety, 
but as he actually was. There are now portraits of 
the king that might have been done by a Donatello. 
The modelling of the human figure at this time was so 
plastic that at the first glance one is sometimes in doubt 
whether he has before him a product of the Greek age. 
More than this, complex compositions of grouped fig- 
ures in the round were now first conceived. Fragments 
recently discovered show that in the court of the king's 
palace at Akhetaton there stood a group wrought in 
stone depicting the king in his chariot in full career, 
pursuing the wounded lion. This was indeed a new 
chapter in the history of art, even though so soon to 
perish. It was in some things an obscure chapter; for 
the strange treatment of the lower limbs by Ikhnaton's 
artists is a problem which still remains unsolved and 
cannot be wholly accounted for by supposing a malfor- 
mation of the king's own limbs. It is one of those 
unhealthy symptoms which are visible too in the body 
politic, and to these last we must now turn if we would 
learn how fatal to the material interests of the state 
this violent break with tradition has been (BAR, II, 
975). 



XIX 

THE FALL OF IKHNATON, AND THE DISSOLUTION OF 
THE EMPIRE 

273. Wholly absorbed in the exalted religion to 
which he had given his life, with difficulty stemming the 
tide of tradition that was daily as strong against him as 
at first, Ikhnaton was beset with too many problems 
at home to give much attention to the affairs of the 
Empire abroad. On his accession his sovereignty in 
Asia had immediately been recognized by the Hittites 
and the powers of the Euphrates valley. Dushratta of 
Mitanni and Burraburyash of Babylon sent assurances 
of sympathy on Amenhotep Ill's death, and both 
sought the favour of the new Pharaoh. A son of Burra- 
buryash later sojourned at Ikhnaton's court and mar- 
ried a daughter of the latter. But such intercourse did 
not last long, as we shall see (AL, 22; 21; 14; 8, 41.) 

274. Meantime the power of the Hittites in northern 
Syria was ever increasing, constantly reinforced by the 
southern movement of their countrymen behind them. 
The remains of this remarkable race, one of the great- 
est problems in the study of the early Orient, have been 
found from the western coast of Asia Minor eastward 
to the plains of Syria and the Euphrates, and south- 
ward as far as Hamath. They were a non-Semitic 
people, or rather peoples, of uncertain racial affinities, 
but evidently distinct from, and preceding, the Indo- 



THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE 281 

Germanic influx after 1200 B. c. which brought in the 
Phrygians. The Hittite pictographic records are still 
in course of decipherment, and enough progress has 
not yet been made to enable the scholar to do more 
than recognize a word here and there. For corres- 
pondence they employed the Babylonian cuneiform, 
and therefore maintained scribes and interpreters who 
were masters of Babylonian speech and writing. Large 
quantities of cuneiform tablets in the Hittite tongue 
have been found at Boghaz-koi. In war they were 
formidable opponents. The infantry, among which 
foreign mercenaries were plentiful, fought in close 
phalanx formation, very effective at close quarters; 
but their chief power consisted of heavy chariotry. 
As far back as the eighteenth century they had pushed 
eastward, invaded Mesopotamia, and plundered Baby- 
lon, probably causing the fall of the First Dynasty there 
(KSEH, II, 72, 148). One of the Hittite dynasts had 
consolidated a kingdom beyond the Amanus, which 
Thutmose III regularly called "Great Kheta," as 
probably distinguished from the less important inde- 
pendent Hittite princes. His capital was a great 
fortified city called Khatti, near modern Boghaz-koi, 
east of Angora in eastern Asia Minor (Note X). Active 
trade and intercourse between this kingdom and Egypt 
had been carried on from that time or began not long 
after. When Ikhnaton ascended the throne Seplel, the 
king of the Hittites, wrote him a letter of congratulation, 
and to all appearances had only the friendliest intentions 
toward Egypt. Even after Ikhnaton's removal to 
Akhetaton his new capital, a Hittite embassy appeared 
there with gifts and greetings. But Ikhnaton must have 
regarded the old relations as no longer desirable, for the 
Hittite king asks him why he has ceased the correspond- 



282 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

ence which his father had maintained. If he realized 
the situation, Ikhnaton had good reason indeed for 
abandoning the connection; for the Hittite empire now 
stood on the northern threshold of Syria, the most for- 
midable enemy which had ever confronted Egypt, and 
the greatest power in Asia (MAAG; AL, 35; 25, 49/.; 
BAR, II, 981). 

275. Immediately on Ikhnaton's accession the dis- 
affected dynasts who had been temporarily suppressed 
by his father resumed their operations against the faithful 
vassals of Egypt. The Hittites were steadily advancing 
up the Orontes, with the cooperation of the unfaithful 
Egyptian vassals, Abd-ashirta and his son Aziru, who 
were at the head of an Amorite kingdom on the upper 
Orontes; together with Itakama, a Syrian prince, who 
had seized Kadesh as his kingdom. Aziru of Amor 
finally succeeded in capturing all the Phoenician and 
north Syrian coast cities except Simyra and Byblos 
which held out. Then, as the Hittites pushed up the 
Orontes, Aziru cooperated with them and captured Niy, 
whose king he slew. Tunip was now in such grave 
danger that her elders wrote the Pharaoh a pathetic 
letter beseeching his protection. They ask: "Who 
formerly could have plundered Tunip without being 
plundered by Manakhbiria [Thutmose III]?" and 
they conclude with lamentation: "And when Aziru 
enters Simyra, Aziru will do to us as he pleases, in the 
territory of our lord, the king, and on account of these 
things our lord will have to lament. And now, Tunip, 
thy city weeps, and her tears are flowing, and there is no 
help for us. For twenty years we have been sending to 
our lord, the king, the king of Egypt, but there has not 
come to us a word, no not one" (AL, 88; 119; 125; 
131-133; 123; 86; 119; 120; 41). 



THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE 283 

276. During all this, Rib-Addi, a faithful vassal of 
Byblos, where there was an Egyptian temple, repeatedly 
writes to the Pharaoh the most urgent appeals, stating 
what is going on, and asking for help to drive 
away Aziru's people from Simyra, knowing full well 
that if it falls his own city of Byblos is likewise 
doomed. But no help comes. Several Egyptian dep- 
uties had been charged with the investigation of 
affairs at Simyra, but they did not succeed in doing 
anything, and the city finally fell. Aziru had no 
hesitation in slaying the Egyptian deputy resident 
in the place, and having destroyed it, was now 
free to move against Byblos. Rib-Addi wrote in horror 
of these facts to the Pharaoh, stating that the Egyptian 
deputy, resident in Kumidi in northern Palestine, was 
now in danger. But the wily Aziru, skilful in specious 
excuses, so uses his friends at court that he escapes. 
Ikhnaton is reassured by Aziru's promises to pay the 
same tribute as the cities which he has taken formerly 
paid. Such acknowledgment of Egyptian suzerainty 
by the turbulent dynasts everywhere must have left in 
the Pharaoh a feeling of security which the situation by 
no means justified ((AL, 150/.; 85; 119; 120; 94; 44- 
47; 49, 36-40; 50 /.). 

277. During all this time Rib-Addi is in sore straits 
in Byblos, and sends dispatch after dispatch to the 
Egyptian court, appealing for aid against Aziru. The 
claims of the hostile dynasts, however, are so skilfully 
made that the resident Egyptian deputies actually do 
not seem to know who are the faithful vassals and who 
the secretly rebellious. Thus Bikhuru, the Egyptian 
deputy in Galilee, not understanding the situation in 
Byblos, sent his Beduin mercenaries thither, where they 
slew all of Rib-Addi's Sherden garrison. The unhappy 



284 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

Rib-Addi, now at the mere} 7 of his foes, sent off two 
dispatches beseeching the Pharaoh to take notice of his 
pitiful plight; while, to make matters worse, the city 
raised an insurrection against him because of the wanton 
act of the Egyptian resident. He has now sustained the 
siege for three years, he is old and burdened with disease; 
fleeing to Berut to secure help from the Egyptian deputy 
there, he returns to Byblos to find the city closed against 
him, his brother having seized the government in his 
absence and delivered his children to Aziru. As Berut 
itself is soon attacked and falls, he forsakes it, again 
returns to Byblos and in some way regains control and 
holds the place for a while longer. Although Aziru, his 
enemy, was obliged to appear at court and finally did 
so, no relief came for the despairing Rib-Addi. All the 
cities of the coast were held by his enemies and their 
ships commanded the sea, so that provisions and rein- 
forcements could not reach him. His wife and family 
urge him to abandon Egypt and join Aziru's party, but 
still he is faithful to the Pharaoh and asks for three 
hundred men to undertake the recovery of Berut, and 
thus gain a little room. The Hittites are plundering 
his territory and the Khabiri, or Beduin mercenaries 
of his enemy Aziru, swarm under his walls; his dis- 
patches to the court soon cease, his city of course fell, 
he was probably slain like the kings of the other coast 
cities, and in him the last vassal of Egypt in the north 
had perished (AL, 51; 77; 100; 71; 23; 96; 65; 67; 
104; 68; 102; 104). 

278. Similar conditions prevailed in the south, where 
the advance of the Khabiri, among whom we must 
recognize bands of Hebrews and Aramaeans, was stead- 
ily absorbing Palestine. Knots of their warriors are now 
appearing everywhere and taking service as mercenary 



THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE 285 

troops under the dynasts on both sides. Under various 
adventurers the Khabiri are frequently the real masters, 
and Palestinian cities like Megiddo, Askalon and Gezer 
write to the Pharaoh for succour against them. The last 
named city, together with Askalon and Lachish, united 
against Abdkhiba, the Egyptian deputy in Jerusalem, 
already at this time an important stronghold of southern 
Palestine, and the faithful officer sends urgent dispatches 
to Ikhnaton explaining the danger and appealing for 
aid against the Khabiri and their leaders. Fleeing in 
terror before the Khabiri, who burned and laid waste 
everywhere, many of the Palestinians forsook their 
towns and took to the hills, or sought refuge in Egypt, 
where the Egyptian officer in charge of some of them 
said of them: "They have been destroyed and their 
town laid waste, and fire has been thrown [into their 
grain?]. . . . Their countries are starving, they live 
like goats of the mountain. ... A few of the Asiatics, 
who knew not how they should live, have come [begging 
a home in the domain ?] of Pharaoh, after the manner 
of your father's fathers since the beginning." The 
last tribute from Asia, of which we are informed, was 
received at Akhetaton in the twelfth year. Some time 
thereafter, both in Syria and Palestine the provinces of 
the Pharaoh passed entirely out of Egyptian control 
(AL, 102; 104; 146; 179-185; 180, 55 /,; 94; 182; 
97; 11; BAR, III, 11; 11,1014/.). 

279. Ikhnaton's faithful vassals had showered dis- 
patches upon him, had sent special ambassadors, sons 
and brothers to represent to him the seriousness of the 
situation; but they had either received no replies at all, 
or an Egyptian commander with an entirely inadequate 
force was dispatched to make futile and desultory at- 
tempts to deal with a situation which demanded the 



286 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

Pharaoh himself and the whole available army of Egypt. 
At Akhetaton, the new and beautiful capital, the splendid 
temple of Aton resounded with hymns to the new god 
of the Empire, while the Empire itself was no more. 
The habit of generations and fast vanishing appre- 
hension lest the Pharaoh might appear in Syria with his 
army, still prompted a few sporadic letters from the 
dynasts, assuring him of their loyalty, which perhaps 
continued in the mind of Ikhnaton the illusion that he 
was still lord of Asia. 

280. The storm which had broken over his Asiatic 
empire was not more disastrous than that which threat- 
ened the fortunes of his house in Egypt. But he was as 
steadfast as before in the propagation of his new faith. 
At his command temples of Aton had now risen all over 
the land. He devoted himself to the elaboration of the 
temple ritual and the tendency to theologize somewhat 
dimmed the earlier freshness of the hymns to the god. 
Meantime the suppression of the most cherished beliefs 
of the people, like their faith in Osiris, their old-time 
protector and friend in the world of darkness, was pro- 
ducing a national convulsion. The people could under- 
stand nothing of the refinements involved in the new 
faith, and in the course of such attempted changes in 
the customs and traditional faith of a whole people, 
as we see in the similar attempt of Theodosius eighteen 
hundred years later, the span of one man's life is in- 
significant indeed. The Aton-faith remained but the 
cherished theory of the idealist, Ikhnaton, and a little 
circle which formed his court; it never really became 
the religion of the people (BAR, II, 1014-15; *1017-1S; 
AZ, 40, 110-113). 

281. Added to the secret resentment and opposition 
of the people, we must consider also a far more danger- 



THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE 287 

ous force, the hatred of the old priesthoods, particularly 
that of Anion. The neglect and loss of the Asiatic 
empire must have turned against the king many a strong" 
man, and aroused indignation in the hearts of the 
military class, whose grandfathers had served under 
Thutmose III. One such man, an officer named 
Harmhab, now in the service of Ikhnaton and enjoying- 
the royal favour, not only contrived to win the support 
of the military class, but also gained the favour of the 
priests of Amon, who were of course looking for some 
one who could bring them the opportunity they coveted. 
Thus both the people and the priestly and military 
classes, alike, were fomenting plans to overthrow the 
hated dreamer in the palace of the Pharaohs, of whose 
thoughts they understood so little. To increase his 
danger, fortune had decreed him no son, and he was 
obliged to depend for support as the years passed, upon 
his son-in-law a noble named Sakere, who had married 
his eldest daughter, Meritaton, "Beloved of Aton." 
Ikhnaton had probably never been physically strong; 
his spare face, with the lines of an ascetic, shows in- 
creasing traces of the cares which weighed so heavily 
upon him. He finally nominated Sakere as his successor 
and appointed him at the same time coregent. He 
survived but a short time after this, and about 1358 b. c, 
having reigned some seventeen years he succumbed to 
the overwhelming forces that were against him. In a 
lonely valley some miles to the east of his city he was 
buried in a tomb which he had excavated in the rock 
for himself and family, and where his second daughter, 
Maketaton, already rested (BAR, III, 22 ff.). 

282. Thus disappeared the most remarkable figure in 
earlier oriental history; or indeed in the history of the 
world before the Hebrews. To his own nation he was 



288 THE EMPIRE: FIRST PERIOD 

afterward known as "the criminal of Akhetaton;" but, 
however much we may censure him, we see in him at the 
same time such a spirit as the early world had never 
known before. Among the Hebrews, seven to eight 
hundred years later, we look for such men; but the 
modern world has yet adequately to value or even ac- 
quaint itself with this man, who in an age so remote and 
under conditions so adverse, became the world's first 
idealist and the world's first individual. 

283. Sakere quickly disappeared, to be followed by 
Tutenkhaton ("Living image of Aton"), another son- 
in-law of Ikhnaton, who was soon forced by the priests of 
Amon to forsake Akhetaton and reside at Thebes 
which had not seen a Pharaoh for twenty years. The 
Aton-temples fell a prey to the vengeance of the Theban 
party, and the once beautiful city of Aton was gradually 
transformed into a desolate ruin. Here in a low brick 
room, which had served as an archive-chamber for 
Ikhnaton's foreign office, were found in 1885 some 
three hundred letters and dispatches, the Tell el- 
Amarna letters, in which we have traced his intercourse 
and dealings with the kings and rulers of Asia and the 
gradual disintegration of his empire there. Here were 
the more than sixty dispatches of the unfortunate Rib- 
Addi of Byblos. All the other Aton-cities likewise 
perished utterly; but Gem- Aton, safe from the first 
burst of wrath in far-off Nubia, survived for a thou- 
sand years, and — strange irony ! — there was afterward a 
temple thereto "Amon, lord of Gem- Aton!" (AZ, 40, 
106-108). 

284. On reaching Thebes, Tutenkhaton continued 
the worship of x\ton, but Amon slowly regained his own, 
till the king was obliged even to change his name to 
Tutenkhamon, "Living image of Amon," showing that 



THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE 289 

he was now completely in the hands of the priestly 
party. The empire which he ruled was still no mean 
one, extending as it did from the Delta through Nubia 
to the fourth cataract, and even still enjoying an occa- 
sional installment of traditional tribute from Palestine. 
Tutenkhaton was quickly succeeded by Eye, another of 
the worthies of the Akhetaton court, who had married 
Ikhnaton's nurse, Tiy. He was sufficiently imbued 
with Ikhnaton's ideas feebly to strive for a short time 
against the priests of Amon; but ere long he too passed 
away and it would appear that one or two other ephem- 
eral pretenders gained the ascendancy either now or 
before his accession. Anarchy ensued. Thebes was a 
prey of plundering bands, who forced their way into the 
royal tombs and robbed the tomb of Thutmose IV. 
The prestige of the old Theban line which had been 
dominant for two hundred and fifty years ; the illustrious 
family which two hundred and thirty years before had 
cast out the Hyksos and built the greatest empire the 
east had ever seen, was now totally eclipsed (1350 B. c). 
Manetho places Harmhab, the restorer who now gained 
the throne, at the close of the Eighteenth Dynasty; but 
in so far as we know he was not of royal blood nor any 
kin of the now fallen house. He marks the complete 
restoration of Amon, the resumption of the old order and 
the beginning of a new epoch (AZ, 34, 135; BAR, II, 
896; 1019; 1034$.; 1027$.; Ill, 20, 11. 2, 5, 8; 32 
Aff.). 



PART VI 
THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 



XX 



THE TRIUMPH OF AMON AND THE REORGANIZATION 
OF THE EMPIRE 

285. The officer Harmhab, whom we have already 
noticed in the service of Ikhnaton, was an able organizer 
and skilful man of affairs quite after the manner of 
Thutmose III. He belonged to an old family once 
nomarchs of Alabastronpolis; he had successfully exe- 
cuted important royal commissions and had served with 
distinction in Asia. During the precarious times inci- 
dent to the rapid succession of weak kings following 
Ikhnaton's death, he had skilfully maintained himself 
and gradually gained a position of such influence, that 
he was now the real power of the throne. This con- 
tinued for some years, until 1350 b. c, and the next step 
was but to receive the titles and insignia of royalty. 
With the army behind him and the support of the 
priesthood of Amon at Thebes, it was only necessary 
to proceed thither to be recognized by Amon as the 
ruling Pharaoh. This was done, amid great splendour 
at the feast of Opet. Harmhab at the same time con- 
tracted a purely formal marriage with one of the 
princesses of the old line, to secure the semblance of 
legitimacy, and the new reign then began (BAR, III, 
5-13; 25-30). 

286. The energy which had brought Harmhab his 
exalted office was immediately evident in his administra- 

293 



294 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

tion of it. He was untiring in restoring to the land the 
orderly organization which it had once enjoyed. At the 
same time he did not forget the temples, which had been 
so long closed under the Aton regime. He restored 
the temples from the pools of the Delta marshes to 
Xubia. He shaped all their images in number more 
than before. The priesthoods were everywhere re- 
stored, Amon received again his old endowments and 
even "gold-country" of his own in Nubia, while the 
incomes of all the other disinherited temples were like- 
wise restored. The people resumed in public the 
worship of the innumerable gods which they had 
practised in secret during the supremacy of Aton. The 
sculptors of the king were sent throughout the land, 
reinserting on the monuments defaced by Ikhnaton, the 
names of the gods which he had erased. Everywhere 
the name of the hated Ikhnaton was treated as he had 
those of the gods. At Akhetaton his tomb was wrecked 
and its reliefs chiselled out; while the tombs of his 
nobles there were violated in the same way. Every 
effort was made to annihilate all trace of the reign of 
such a man; and when in legal procedure it was neces- 
sary to cite documents or enactments from his reign he 
was designated as "that criminal of Akhetaton." The 
triumph of Amon was complete; the priests exulted in 
the overthrow of his enemies: "Woe to him who assails 
thee ! Thy city endures but he who assails thee is 
overthrown. Fie upon him who sins against thee in 
any land. . . . The sun of him who knew thee not 
has set, but he who knows thee shines. The sanctu- 
ary of him who assailed thee is overwhelmed in dark- 
ness, but the whole earth is in light" (BAR, III, 22-32; 
71 /.; II, p. 383, notes a, b; BTLN, p. 20; AZ, 42, 
106-109; GIM). 



THE REORGANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE 295 

287, There were other directions in which the restora- 
tion of what Harmhab regarded as normal conditions 
was not merely yielding to the inertia of tradition. 
Gross laxity in the oversight of the local administration 
had characterized the reign of Ikhnaton and his succes- 
sors. Everywhere the local officials, long secure from 
close inspection on the part of the central government, 
had revelled in extortions, practised upon the long- 
suffering masses. To ameliorate these conditions 
Harmhab first informed himself thoroughly as to the 
extent and character of the evils, and then in his private 
chamber he dictated to his personal scribe a remarkable 
series of special and highly particularized laws to suit 
every case of which he had learned. The penalties 
were severe. A tax-collector for example, if found 
guilty of thus practising upon the poor man, was 
sentenced to have his nose cut off, followed by banish- 
ment to Tharu, the desolate frontier city far out in the 
sands of the Arabian desert toward Asia. The dis- 
covery of such local misgovernment was very difficult 
owing to collusion with the local officials by inspecting 
officers sent out by the central government. These 
corrupt superiors, for a share in the plunder, would 
overlook the extortions which they had been sent from 
the court to discover and prevent. This evil, rooted 
out in the days of the aggressive Thutmose III, was 
now rampant again, and Harmhab apparently revived 
the methods of Thutmose III for controlling it. In 
order to lift his executive officials above all necessity of 
accepting any income from a corrupt source, Harmhab 
had them provided for with great liberality. They 
went out on inspection several times a month, and on 
these occasions either just before their departure or 
immediately after their return, the king gave them a 



296 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

sumptuous feast in the palace court, appearing himself 
upon the balcony, addressing each man by name and 
throwing down gifts among them. In the introduction 
and application of the new laws Harmhab went person- 
ally from end to end of the kingdom, improving also the 
administration of justice. Besides the appointment of 
good viziers and stringent laws against bribery, in 
order to discourage the latter among the local judges, he 
took an unprecedented step. He remitted the tax of 
gold and silver levied upon judicial officers, permitting 
them to retain the entire income of their offices, in order 
that they might have no excuse for illegally enriching 
themselves. These sane and philanthropic reforms 
give Harmhab a high place in the history of humane 
government; especially when we remember that even 
since the occupation of the country by the English, 
the evils at which he struck have been found exceed- 
ingly persistent and difficult to root out (BAR, III, 
45-67). 

288. If Harmhab had any ambition to leave a reputa- 
tion as a foreign conqueror, the times were against him. 
His accession fell at a time when all his powers and all 
his great ability were necessarily employed exclusively 
in reorganizing the kingdom. He probably reached an 
understanding with the Hittites, he kept Nubia well in 
hand, and he sent out a successful expedition to Punt. He 
performed his task at home with a strength and skill not 
less than were required for great conquest abroad; 
and, although a soldier, with all the qualities which that 
calling implies in the early east, he could truly say: 
"Behold, his majesty spent the whole time seeking the 
welfare of Egypt." He probably reigned some thirty- 
five years, and was buried in his old Memphite tomb, 
erected before his coronation and still bearing his old 



THE REORGANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE 297 

titles (BAR, III, 64-67; 45$.; 34; 377; 40 $.; 37$.; 
50; 1-21; 157; 78; 74$.; GIM). 

289. The fruits of Harmhab's reorganization were 
destined to be enjoyed by his successors. "Whether or 
not he succeeded in founding a dynasty we do not 
know. It is impossible to discover any certain connec- 
tion between him and Ramses I, an old man, who now 
(1315 b. c.) succeeded him. Too old to accomplish 
anything, Ramses I was after a short coregency followed 
by his son, Seti I, then probably about thirty years old 
(1313 B. a). During his short coregency of not more 
than a year, Seti I must have already laid all his plans 
and organized his army in readiness for an attempt to 
recover the lost empire in Asia. The information which 
Seti I now received as to the state of Palestine betrays 
a condition of affairs quite such as we should expect 
would have resulted from the tendency evident in the 
letters of Abdkhiba of Jerusalem to Ikhnaton (p. 285). 
They showed us the Beduin of the neighbouring desert 
pressing into Palestine and taking possession of the 
towns, whether in the service of the turbulent dynasts 
or on their own responsibility. We saw these letters 
corroborated by Egyptian monuments, portraying the 
panic-stricken Palestinians fleeing into Egypt before 
these foes. Seti Fs messengers now bring him informa- 
tion of the very same character regarding the Beduin. 
It was among these desert invaders of Palestine that the 
movement of the Hebrews resulting in their settlement 
there took place (BAR, III, 157; 84; 86; 11,409; III, 
101, 11. 3-9). 

290. In his first year Seti was able to march out from 
Tharu and lead his expedition along the desert road, 
past the stations which he had already restored. Hav- 
ing subdued the Beduin of southern Palestine, he pushed 



298 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

rapidly northward, capturing the towns of the plain of 
Esdnelon (Jezreel), pushing eastward across the valley 
of the Jordan and erecting his tablet of victory in the 
Hauran, and westward to the southern slopes of Leba- 
non, where the neighbouring dynasts immediately came 
to him and offered their allegiance. They had not seen 
a Pharaoh at the head of his army in Asia for over fifty 
years, — not since Amenhotep III had left Sidon (See 
p. 263). It is remotely possible that he advanced as far 
north as Simyra and Ullaza, and that the prince of 
Cyprus sent in his gifts as of old. However that may 
be, Tyre and Othu submitted in any case, and having 
thus secured the coast and restored the water route 
between Syria and Egypt for future operations, Seti re- 
turned to Egypt, where a triumph awaited him as he 
passed the frontier and on his arrival at Thebes, such as 
the grandees of the realm had not witnessed for two 
generations (BAR, III, 83/.; 85/.; 87/.; 81; 89-94; 
98-113). 

291. This campaign was quite sufficient to restore 
southern Palestine to the kingdom of the Pharaoh, and 
probably also most of northern Palestine. Seti's opera- 
tions in Asia were now interrupted by a campaign against 
the Libyans west of the Nile mouths who never failed 
to improve the opportunity of lax government in Egypt 
to push into the Delta and settle there. The next season 
we find him in Galilee, storming the walled city of 
Kadesh (not to be confused with Kadesh on the 
Orontes), in the Amorite kingdom, founded by Ab- 
dashirta and Aziru (p. 282), now forming a kind of 
buffer state in the Orontes valley between Palestine on 
the south and the southern Hittite frontier on the north. 
After harrying its territory and probably taking Ka- 
desh, Seti pushed northward against the Hittites, now 



THE REORGANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE 299 

under their king, Merasar (cuneiform Mursili), son of 
Seplel (cuneiform Shubbiluliuma), who had entered 
into treaty relations with Egypt toward the close of the 
Eighteenth Dynasty. Somewhere in the Orontes valley 
Seti came into contact with them and the first battle 
between the Hittites and a Pharaoh occurred. It is, 
not probable that he met the main army of the Hittites; 
certain it is that he did not shake their power in Syria; 
Kadesh on the Orontes remained in their hands, and at 
most, Seti could not have accomplished more than to 
check their southern advance. The boundary which 
he had established in Asia roughly coincided inland 
with the northern limits of Palestine, and must have in- 
cluded also Tyre and the Phoenician coast south of the 
mouth of the Litany. Though much increasing the 
territory of Egypt in Asia, it represented but a small 
third of what she had once conquered there. Under 
these circumstances, it would have been quite natural 
for Seti to continue the war in Syria. For some reason, 
however, he did not, in so far as we know, ever appear 
with his forces in Asia again; and either at this time or 
later, he negotiated a treaty of peace with the Hittite 
king, Metella, who had succeeded his father, Merasar 
(BAR, III, 82, 2; 120-152; 375; 377). 

292. Returning to Egypt, he devoted himself to the 
interests of peace, especially to restoring the temples of 
the gods defaced during the Aton revolution, only 
partially repaired by Harmhab. At all the great 
sanctuaries of the old gods his buildings were now 
rising on a scale unprecedented in the palmiest days of 
the Empire. In front of the pylon of Amenhotep III, 
forming the facade of the state temple at Karnak, Seti 
continued the vast colonnaded hall planned and begun 
by his father, and surpassing in size even the enormous 



300 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

unfinished hypostyle of Amenhotep III at Luxor. He 
completed some of the columns of the northern aisles 
as well as the north wall, on the outside of which his 
sculptors engraved a colossal series of reliefs portraying 
his campaigns. Mounting from the base to the coping 
they cover the entire wall (over two hundred feet long). 
Similar works existed in the Eighteenth Dynasty 
temples, but they have all perished, and Seti's battle- 
reliefs therefore form the most imposing work of the 
kind now surviving in Egypt. Like his fathers of the 
Eighteenth Dynast y, he erected a great mortuary temple 
on the western plain of Thebes, and another yet more 
splendid at Abydos, having a side chapel for the sen-ices 
of the old kings, especially of the First and Second Dy- 
nasties, whose tombs still lie in the desert behind the 
temple. The list of their names which he engraved upon 
the walls still forms one of the most important sources 
for our chronological arrangement and assignment of the 
Pharaohs. A temple at Memphis, probably another 
at Heliopolis, with doubtless others in the Delta of 
which we know nothing, completed the series of Seti's 
greater buildings (Note VII; BAR, 111,200-221; 225- 
243; 80-156; 495). 

293. These works drew heavily upon his treasury, 
and he personally explored the road leading to the gold 
mines of Gebel Zebara, finally digging a well and 
establishing a station on this road thirty-seven miles 
from the river (just above Edfu). Then Seti estab- 
lished the income from the mines thus reached as a 
permanent endowment for his temple at Abydos, and 
called down terrifying curses on any posterity who should 
violate his enactments. Yet within a year after his 
death they had ceased to be effective and had to be re- 
newed by his son. In a similar attempt further south 



THE REORGANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE 301 

on the road to the Wady Alaki, a well two hundred feet 
deep failed to reach water (BAR, III, 170-195; 263; 
289), 

294. The art developed in connection with Seti's 
buildings was hardly less strong, virile and beautiful 
than that prevailing during the Eighteenth Dynasty. 
His battle-reliefs are the most ambitious attempt at 
elaborate composition left by the surviving school of the 
Eighteenth Dynasty, although the finest reliefs of the 
time are to be found in Seti's temple at Abydos, in 
which there is a rare combination of softness and refine- 
ment, with bold and sinuous lines and exquisite 
modelling. 

295. Beyond Seti's ninth year we know practically 
nothing of his reign. He seems to have spent his 
energies upon his extensive buildings, and among these 
he did not forget the excavation of the largest tomb yet 
made in the valley of the kings at Thebes. It descends 
into the mountain through a series of galleries and ex- 
tensive halls no less than four hundred and seventy feet 
in oblique depth. His last days were clouded with 
conflicts over the succession between his eldest son and 
a younger brother, Ramses, son of the queen Tuya. 
Some time before his approaching jubilee, while the 
obelisks for it were still unfinished, Seti died (about 
1292 b. a), having reigned over twenty years since his 
own father's death. The body, still preserved by happy 
accident, shows him to have been one of the stateliest 
figures that ever sat upon the throne of Egypt. 

296. On Seti's death Prince Ramses brushed aside 
his eldest brother without a moment's hesitation and 
seized the throne. But the usual court devices were im- 
mediately resorted to. He lost no time, however, in 
making himself strong at Thebes, the seat of power. 



302 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

Thither he immediately hastened, probably from the 
Delta, and celebrated in the state temple the great 
annual Feast of Opet. Having gained the priests of 
Amon, he devoted himself with great zeal to pious 
works in memory of his father, whose magnificent 
mortuary temple at Abydos had been left unfinished 
by Seti. This sumptuous building having been com- 
pleted, he restored its endowments already violated, 
and generously furnished it. These and similar works 
required him to continue his father's efforts to increase 
the revenue from the Nubian gold countries, and he 
succeeded where Seti had failed, in supplying with 
water the road to the mines of the Wadi Alaki. Such 
enterprises of internal exploitation were but preparatory 
in the plans of Ptamses. His ambition held him to 
greater purposes; and he contemplated nothing less 
than the recovery of the great Asiatic empire, conquered 
by his predecessors of the Eighteenth Dynasty (BAR, 
II, 251-293). 



XXI 

THE WARS OF RAMSES II 

297. We have seen that the Nineteenth Dynasty had 
inherited a very dangerous situation in Syria. When 
Ramses II ascended the throne the Hittites had re- 
mained in undisputed possession of their Syrian con- 
quests for probably more than twenty years since the 
only attempt by Seti I to dislodge them. The long 
peace probably concluded with Seti gave their king, 
Metella (cuneiform Muttallu), an opportunity, of 
which he made good use, to render their position in 
Syria impregnable, by pushing southward and seizing 
Kadesh, the key to the Orontes valley and the strongest 
fortress in Syria. 

298. Ramses's plan for the war was like that of his 
great ancestor, Thutmose III : he first gained the coast, 
that he might use one of its harbours as a base, enjoying 
quick and easy communication with Egypt by water. 
An illegible limestone stela cut into the face of the rocks 
overlooking the Nahr el-Kelb (Dog River) near Berut, 
our only source for this event, shows that it took place 
in the "year four." Meantime Metella was collecting 
probably the largest force that Egypt had ever met, con- 
taining probably not less than twenty thousand men. 
We find among them the old enemies of Egypt in Syria : 
the kings of Naharin, Arvad, Carchemish, Kode, 
Kadesh, Nuges, Ekereth (Ugarit) and Aleppo. Besides 

303 



304 THE EMPIRE: SECOXD PERIOD 

these, Mettella's subject kingdoms in Asia Minor, like 
Kezweden and Pedes, were drawn upon; and not con- 
tent with the army thus collected, he emptied his 
treasury to tempt the mercenaries of Asia Minor and 
the Mediterranean islands: Lycian pirates, Mysians, 
Cilicians, and Dardanians took service in the Hittite 
ranks. 

299. Ramses on his part had not been less active in 
securing mercenary support. Nubian levies, not un- 
known in the Egyptian army since the remote days of 
the old Kingdom, and especially the "Sherden" or 
Sardinians, long ago employed in the Pharaoh's Syrian 
garrisons (p. 252), were now a recognized contingent. 
Thus Ramses likewise commanded a force of not less 
than twenty thousand men all told. He divided these 
troops into four divisions, each named after one of the 
great gods: Amon, Re, Ptah and Sutekh; and himself 
took personal command of the division of Amon (BAR, 
111,297; 306/.; 491). 

300. About the end of April of his fifth year (1288 
b. a), when the rains of Syria had ceased, Ramses 
marched out of Tharu, on his northeastern frontier, at 
the head of these troops. The division of Amon, with 
whom the Pharaoh was, formed the advance, and the 
other divisions, Re, Ptah and Sutekh, followed in the 
order mentioned. A month later we find him marching 
down the Orontes, northward, till he camped on a height 
overlooking the vast plain in which lay Kadesh, only 
a day's march distant, with its battlements probably 
visible on the northern horizon, toward which the 
Orontes wound its way across the plain (BAR, III, 491 ; 
BK). 

301. Day after day Ramses' officers had reported to 
him their inability to find any trace of the enemy, and 



THE WARS OF RAMSES II 



305 



Camp of 
Division i 
ofAmon 



had added their impression that he was still far in the 
north. At this juncture two Beduin of the region 
appeared and stated that they had deserted from the 
Hittite ranks, and that the Hittite king had retreated 
northward to the district of 
Aleppo, north of Tunip. 
In view of the failure of his 
scouting parties to find the 
enemy, Ramses readily be- 
lieved this story, broke camp 
early, crossed the river with 
the division of Amon and 
pushed rapidly on to Ka- 
desh, which he reached by 
noon, while the divisions 
of Re, Ptah and Sutekh, 
marching in the order 
named, straggled far behind. 
Meantime the crafty Metel- 
la, seeing that the story of 
his two Beduin, whom he 
has sent out for the very 
purpose of deceiving Ram- 
ses, has been implicitly ac- 
cepted, quickly transfers 
his entire army from the 
northwest of the city to the 
east side of the river, and 
while Ramses passes north- 
ward along the west side of 
Kadesh, Metella deftly dodges him, moving southward 
along the east side of the city, always keeping it between 
him and the Egyptians to prevent his troops from 
being seen. As he draws in on the east and southeast 




Asiatics 
— Egyptians 







5Km. 



5M. 



The Battle of Kadesh. 
Positions of the opposing 



forces at the 
Asiatic attack. 



time of the 



306 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

of the city he has secured a position on Ramses ' flank, 
from which he can completely isolate the Pharaoh from 
his southern divisions, threatening the destruction of 
Ramses and his army. The Egyptian forces were 
now roughly divided into two groups: near Kadesh 
were the two divisions of Anion and Re, while far 
southward the divisions of Ptah and Sutekh have not 
yet crossed at the ford of Shabtuna. The division of 
Sutekh was so far away that nothing more was heard 
of it and it took no part in the day's action. Ramses 
halted on the northwest of the citv, not far from and 
perhaps on the very ground occupied by the Asiatic 
army a short time before. 

302. Here he camped in the early afternoon, and the 
division of Amon, coming up shortly afterward, bivou- 
acked around his tent. The weary troops were re- 
laxing, feeding their horses and preparing their own 
meal, w r hen two Asiatic spies were brought in by 
Ramses' scouts and taken to the royal tent. Brought 
before Ramses after a merciless beating, they confessed 
that Metella and his entire army were concealed behind 
the city. Thoroughly alarmed, the young Pharaoh 
hastily summoned his commanders and officials, chided 
them bitterly, and commanded the vizier to bring up 
the division of Ptah with all speed, supposing that Re 
was almost within call. He therefore at this juncture 
little dreamed of the desperate situation into which he 
had been betrayed, nor of the catastrophe which at that 
very moment was overtaking the unfortunate division 
of Re. Already Metella's chariotry had issued from 
the south side of Kadesh and quickly crossing the river, 
struck the unsuspecting division of Re while on the 
march, cut it in two and scattered the two portions far 
and wide. Some fled northward toward Ramses' 



THE WARS OF RAMSES II 



307 



Amon *~H 



80ooAs\ahc 
Infantry 

Kadesh 



camp in a wild rout, and the first intimation received 
by the Pharaoh of the appalling disaster which now 
faced him was the headlong flight of these fugitives of 
the annihilated division, among whom were two of his 
own sons. As they burst 
over the barricade into the 
astonished camp, with the 
Hittite chariotry in hot 
pursuit close upon their 
heels, they inevitably swept 
along with them northward 
the surprised and defense- 
less division of Amon. The 
bulk of Ramses' available 
force was thus in flight, 
his southern divisions were 
miles away and separated 
from him by the whole mass 
of twenty-five hundred of 
the enemy's chariotry, whose 
wings now rapidly swelled 
out on either hand and en- 
folded the camp. The dis- 
aster was complete. 

303. Taken with but short 
shrift for preparation, the 
young Pharaoh hesitated not 
a, moment in attempting to 
-cut his way out and to 
reach his southern columns. 
With only his household troops, his immediate followers 
and the officers, who happened to be at his side, he 
mounted his waiting chariot and boldly charged into 
the advance of the Hittite pursuit as it poured into his 




Asiatics 
—Egyptians 
•~ Fugitive Egyptians 

Ramies □ Egyptian Camp( 



5 Km. 

5 M. 

e^ i i i i —i 

The Battle of Kadesh. 
Showing Ramses II 's di- 
vided forces and his envelop- 
ment by the enemy in the 
second stage of the battle. 



308 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

camp on the west side; but perceiving how heavily the 
enemy was massed before him, immediately understood 
that further onset in that direction was hopeless. 
Retiring into the camp again, he must have noted how 
thin was the eastern wing of the surrounding chariots 
along the river where there had not yet been time for 
the enemy to strengthen their line. As a forlorn hope 
he charged this line with an impetuousity that hurled 
the Asiatics in his immediate front pell-mell into the 
river. Again and again Ramses renewed the charge, 
finally producing serious discomfiture in the enemy's 
line at this point. Had the mass of the Hittite chariotry 
now swept in upon his rear from the west and south he 
must certainly have been lost. But to his great good 
fortune his camp had fallen into the hands of these 
troops and, dismounting from their chariots, they had 
thrown discipline to the winds as they gave themselves 
up to the rich plunder. Thus engaged, they were sud- 
denly fallen upon by a body of Ramses' "recruits" who 
may possibly have marched in from the coast to join his 
army at Kadesh. At any rate, they did not belong to 
either of the southern divisions. They completely sur- 
prised the plundering Asiatics in the camp and slew 
them to a man. 

304. The sudden offensive of Ramses along the river 
and the unexpected onslaught of the "recruits" must 
have considerably dampened the ardour of the Hittite 
attack, giving the Pharaoh an opportunity to recover 
himself. These newly arrived "recruits," together 
with the returning fugitives from the unharmed but 
scattered division of Amon, so augmented his power, 
that even though Metella now sent in his reserves of a 
thousand chariots, the Pharaoh, by prodigies of personal 
valour, still kept his scanty forces together, till the be- 



THE WARS OF RAMSES II 309 

lated division of Ptah arrived on the field as evening 
drew on. Caught between the opposing lines, the 
Hittite chariotry was driven into the city, probably with 
considerable loss, and Ramses was saved. What made 
the issue a success for Ramses was his salvation from 
utter destruction, and that he eventually held possession 
of the field added little practical advantage. His losses 
were doubtless much heavier than those of the enemy, 
and he was glad enough to lead his shattered forces 
back to Egypt. None of his records makes any claim 
that he captured Kadesh, as is so frequently stated in 
the current histories (BAR, III, 298-351; BK). 

305. Once safely extricated from the perilous position 
into which his rashness had betrayed him, Ramses was 
very proud of his exploit at Kadesh. On the temple 
walls at Abu Simbel, at the Ramesseum, his mortuary 
temple at Thebes, at Luxor, Karnak, Abydos and pro- 
bably on other buildings now perished, his artists exe- 
cuted a vast series of vivacious reliefs depicting Ramses' 
camp, the flight of his sons, the Pharaoh's furious charge 
down to the river, and the arrival of the recruits who 
rescued the camp, all accompanied by numerous ex- 
planatory inscriptions. These sculptures are better 
known to modern travellers in Egypt than any other like 
monuments in the country. They are twice accom- 
panied by a report on the battle which reads like an 
official document. There early arose a poem on the 
battle, of which we shall later have more to say. These 
sources have enabled us to trace with certainty the 
maneuvres which led up to the battle of Kadesh, the 
first battle in history which can be so studied. We 
see that already in the thirteenth century B. c. the com- 
manders of the time understood the value of placing 
troops advantageously before battle. The immense 



310 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

superiority to be gained by clever maneuvres masked, 
from the enemy, was clearly comprehended by the Hittite 
king when he executed the first flank movement of 
which we hear in the early orient; and the plains of 
Syria, already at that remote epoch, witnessed notable 
examples of that supposedly modern science, which 
was brought to such perfection by Napoleon, — the 
science of winning the victory before the battle (BAR, 
III, 298-351; BK). 

306. Arrived in Thebes, Ramses enjoyed the usual 
triumph in the state temple, but the moral effect of his 
return to Egypt immediately after the battle without 
even laying siege to Kadesh, was immediately evident 
among the dynasts of Syria and Palestine, who now 
revolted. The rising spread southward to the very 
gates of Ramses' frontier forts in the northeastern 
Delta. We see him, therefore, obliged to begin again 
at the very bottom to rebuild the Egyptian empire in 
Asia and recover by weary campaigns even the territory 
which his father had won. It was not until his eighth 
year, after three years spent in recovering Palestine, that 
Ramses was again pushing down the valley of the 
Orontes, where he must have finally succeeded in dis- 
lodging the Hittites. In Naharin he conquered the 
country as far as Tunip, which he also reduced and 
placed a statue of himself there. But the Hittites soon 
stirred the region to further revolt, and Ramses again 
found them in Tunip, which he retook by storm. His 
lists credit him with having subdued Naharin, Lower 
Retenu (North Syria), Arvad, the Keftyew, and Ketne 
in the Orontes valley. It is thus evident that Ram- 
ses' ability and tenacity as a soldier had now really 
endangered the Hittite empire in Syria, although 
it is very uncertain whether he succeeded in holding 



THE WARS OF RAMSES II 311 

these northern conquests (BAR, III, 355-360; 364- 
366). 

307. When he had been thus campaigning probably 
some fifteen years, Metella, the Hittite king, either died 
in battle or at the hands of a rival, and his brother, 
Khetasar (cuneiform Hattusil), who succeeded him, 
proposed to the Pharaoh a permanent peace and a 
treaty of alliance. In Ramses' twenty-first year (1272 
B. c.) Khetasar's messengers bearing the treaty reached 
the Egyptian court, now in the Delta. Having been 
drafted in advance and accepted by representatives of 
the two countries, it was now in its final form, in eigh- 
teen paragraphs inscribed on a silver tablet. It then 
proceeded to review the former relations between the 
two countries, passed then to a general definition of the 
present pact, and thus to its special stipulations. Of 
these the most important were: the renunciation by 
both rulers of all projects of conquest against the other, 
the reaffirmation of the former treaties existing between 
the two countries, a defensive alliance involving the as- 
sistance of each against the other's foes; co-operation 
in the chastisement of delinquent subjects, probably in 
Syria; and the extradition of political fugitives and 
immigrants. A codicil provides for the humane treat- 
ment of these last. Two transcripts of the treaty have 
been found at Thebes, engraved upon temple walls, 
and last summer (1906) the Hittite copy in Babylonian 
cuneiform on a clay tablet, was found at Boghaz-Koi 
in Asia Minor (Note X; BAR, III, 375, 1. 10; 373; 
367-391). 

308. It will be noticed that the treaty nowhere refers 
to the boundary recognized by both countries in Syria. 
It is difficult to form any idea of the location of this 
boundary. It is not safe to affirm that Ramses had 



312 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

permanently advanced the boundary of his father's 
kingdom in Asia, save probably on the coast, where he 
carved two more stelae on the rocks near Berut, beside 
that of his fourth year (p. 303). Thirteen years later 
1259 B. c.) the Hittite king himself visited Egypt to 
consummate the marriage of his eldest daughter as the 
wife of Ramses. His visit was depicted before Ramses' 
temple at Abu Simbel, with accompanying narrative in- 
scriptions, while the Hittite princess was given a promi- 
nent position at court and a statue beside her royal 
husband in Tanis. Court poets celebrated the event 
and pictured the Hittite king as sending to the king of 
Kode and summoning him to join in the journey to 
Egypt that they might do honour to the Pharaoh. The 
occurrence made a popular impression also, and a tale, 
which was not put into writing, so far as we know, until 
Greek times, began with the marriage and told how 
afterward, at the request of her father, an image of the 
Theban Khonsu was sent to the land of the princess, 
that the god's power might drive forth the evil spirits 
from her afflicted sister. The friendly relations between 
the two kingdoms prospered, and it is even probable that 
Ramses received a second daughter of Khetasar in 
marriage. Throughout Ramses' long reign the treaty 
remained unbroken and the peace continued at least 
into the reign of his successor, Merneptah iBAR, III, 
392; 394-424; 416/.; 425/.; 427/.; 429-447 . 

309. From the day of the peace compact with Khe- 
tasar, Ramses was never called upon to enter the field 
a^ain. Unimportant revolts in Xubia, and a Libyan 
campaign, often vaguely referred to on his monuments, 
did not require the Pharaoh's personal leadership. 

310. With the Asiatic campaigns of Ramses II the 
military aggressiveness of Egypt which had been awak- 



THE WARS OF RAMSES II 313 

ened under Ahmose I in the expulsion of the Hyksos 
was completely exhausted. Nor did it ever revive. 
Henceforward for a long time the Pharaoh's army is 
but a weapon of defense against foreign aggression; 
a weapon, however, which he was himself unable to 
control, — and before which the venerable line of Re 
was finally to disappear (BAR, III, 448-491). 



XXII 

THE EMPIRE OF RAMSES II 

311. The dominance of Egypt in Asiatic affairs had 
irresistibly drawn the centre of power on the Nile from 
Thebes to the Delta. Thebes remained the religious 
capital of the state and at the greater feasts in its temple 
calendar the Pharaoh was often present, but his perma- 
nent residence was in the north. His constant presence 
here resulted in a development of the cities of the eastern 
Delta such as they had never before enjoyed. Tanis 
became a great and flourishing city, with a splendid 
temple, while in the Wady Tumilat, the natural approach 
to Egypt from Asia, Ramses built a "store-city," which 
he called Pithom, or "House of Atum" (Ex. I* 11). At 
the western end of the Wady he and Seti founded a city 
just north of Heliopolis, now known as Tell el-Yehudi- 
yeh. Somewhere in the eastern Delta he founded a 
residence city, Per-Ramses, or "House of Ramses." 
Its situation is not certain, although it has often been 
thought to be identical with Tanis; but it was close to 
the eastern frontier, and was also accessible to seafaring 
traffic. It was familiar to the Hebrews as "Raamses" 
(Ex. I, 11), and through this Pharaoh's other great en- 
terprises here, this region became known as " the land of 
Ramses," a name so completely identified with it that 
Hebrew tradition read it back into the days of Joseph, 
before any Ramses had ever sat on the throne. In 

314 



THE EMPIRE OF RAMSES II 315 

Memphis and Abydos little has survived. At Thebes 
he spent enormous resources in the completion of his 
father's mortuary temple, another beautiful sanctuary 
for his own mortuary service, known to all visitors at 
Thebes as the Ramesseum; a large court and pylon 
in enlargement of the Luxor temple; while, surpassing 
in size all buildings of the ancient or modern world, his 
architects completed the colossal colonnaded hall of 
the Karnak temple, already begun under the first 
Ramses, the Pharaoh's grandfather. Few of the great 
temples of Egypt have not some chamber, hall, colon- 
nade or pylon which bears his name, in perpetuating 
which the king stopped at no desecration or destruction 
of the ancient monuments of the country. But in spite 
of this fact, his own legitimate building was on a scale 
quite surpassing in size and extent anything that his 
ancestors had ever accomplished. The buildings which 
he erected were filled with innumerable supplementary 
monuments, especially colossal statues of himself and 
obelisks. The former are the greatest monolithic 
statues ever executed; one at Tanis having been 
ninety feet in height, of a single block weighing nine 
hundred tons, while another, still lying in fragments 
in the Ramesseum, weighed about a thousand tons. 
As the years passed and he celebrated jubilee after 
jubilee the obelisks which he erected in commemora- 
tion of these festivals rapidly rose among his tem- 
ples. At Tanis alone he erected no less than four- 
teen, all of which are now prostrate; three at least 
of his obelisks are in Rome; and of the two which 
he erected in Luxor, one is in Paris. The generous 
endowment necessary for the erection of each such 
temple, must have been a serious economic problem 
(BAR, III, 82, 2; 492-537; 543-549; FT, I, 22-24; 



316 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

AS, III, 29; PI, p. 4; PKGH, p. 22; NA, pp. 2, 

9-11, pi. I). 

312. Notwithstanding the shift of the centre of 
gravity northward, the south was not neglected. In 
Nubia Ramses became the patron deity; no less than 
seven new temples arose there, dedicated to the great 
gods of Egypt, to the Pharaoh and his queen, Xefretiri. 
Nubia became more and more Egyptianized, and 
between the first and second cataracts the old native 
chiefs had practically disappeared, the administrative 
officials of the Pharaoh were in complete control, and 
there was even an Egyptian court of justice, with the 
viceroy as chief judge (ELAE, 504). 

313. Ramses' great building enterprises were not 
achieved without vast expense of resources, especially 
those of labour. There is probably little question of 
the correctness of the Hebrew tradition in attributing 
the oppression of some tribe of their ancestors to the 
builder of Pithom and Ramses; that they should have 
fled the country to escape such labour is quite in accord 
with what we know of the time. Intercourse with 
Palestine and Syria was now more inimate than ever. 
A letter of a frontier official, dated in the reign of 
Ramses IPs successor, tells of passing a body of Edo- 
mite Beduin through a fortress in the Wady Tumilat, 
that they might pasture their herds by the pools of 
Pithom as the Hebrews had done in the days of Joseph. 
In the rough memoranda of a commandant's scribe, 
probably of the frontier fortress of Tharu, in the 
Isthmus of Suez, we find also noted the people whom 
he had allowed to pass: messengers with letters for the 
officers of the Palestinian garrisons, for the king of 
Tyre, and for officers with the king (Merneptah) then 
campaigning in Syria, besides officers bearing reports, 



THE EMPIRE OF RAMSES II 317 

or hurrying out to Syria to join the Pharaoh. Although 
there was never a continuous fortification of any length 
across the Isthmus of Suez, there was a line of strong- 
holds, of which Tharu was one and probably Ramses 
another, stretching well across the zone along which 
Egypt might be entered from Asia. This zone did 
not extend to the southern half of the isthmus, which 
was well nigh impassable, but was confined to the ter- 
ritory between Lake Timsah and the Mediterranean, 
whence the line of fortresses therefore extended south- 
ward, passed the lake and bent westward into the Wady 
Tumilat. Hence Hebrew tradition depicts the escape 
of the Israelites across the southern half of the isthmus 
south of the line of defences, which might have stopped 
them. The tide of commerce that ebbed and flowed 
through the Isthmus of Suez was even fuller than under 
the Eighteenth Dynasty, while on the Mediterranean 
the Egyptian galleys must have whitened the sea (BAR, 
III, 636-638; 630-635). 

314. On the Pharaoh's table were rarities and delica- 
cies from Cyprus, the land of the Hittites and of the 
Amorites, Babylonia and Naharin. Elaborately wrought 
chariots, weapons, whips and gold-mounted staves from 
the Palestinian and Syrian towns filled his magazine, 
while his stalls boasted fine horses of Babylon and cattle 
of the Hittite country. The appurtenances of a rich 
man's estate included a galley plying between Egypt 
and the Syrian coast to bring to the pampered Egyptian 
the luxuries of Asia; and even Seti Fs mortuary temple 
at Abydos possessed its own sea-going vessels, given by 
Ramses, to convey the temple offerings from the east. 
The country swarmed with Semitic and other Asiatic 
slaves, while Phoenician and other alien merchants were 
so numerous that there was a foreign quarter in Mem- 



318 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

phis, with its temples of Baal and Astarte; and these 
and other Semitic gods found a place in the Egyptian 
pantheon. The dialects of Palestine and vicinity, of 
which Hebrew was one, lent many a Semitic word to 
the current language of the day, as well as select terms 
with which the learned scribes were fond of garnishing 
their writings. We find such words commonly in the 
Nineteenth Dynasty papyri four or five centuries before 
they appear in the Hebrew writings of the Old Testament. 
The royal family was not exempt from such influence; 
Ramses' favourite daughter was called "Bint- Anath," 
a Semitic name, which means " Daughter of Anath " (a 
Syrian goddess), and one of the royal steeds was named 
"Anath-herte," "Anath is Satisfied." 

315. The effect of the vast influx of Asiatic life, al- 
ready apparent under the Eighteenth Dynasty, was now 
profound, and many a foreigner of Semitic blood 
found favour and ultimately high station at the court 
or in the government. A Syrian named Ben-'Ozen was 
chief herald or marshal of Merneptah's court, but he 
was never regent as sometimes stated. The commercial 
opportunities of the time also brought them wealth and 
power; a Syrian sea-captain named Ben- Anath was 
able to secure a son of Ramses II as a husband for his 
daughter. In the army great careers were open to such 
foreigners, although the rank and file of the Pharaoh's 
forces were replenished from western and southern 
peoples rather than from Asia. In a body of five 
thousand of Ramses' troops not a single native Egyptian 
was to be found; over four thousand of them were 
Sherden and Libyans and the remainder were Nubians. 
The dangerous tendencies inherent in such a system had 
already shown themselves and were soon felt by the 
royal house, although powerless to make head against 



THE EMPIRE OF RAMSES II 319 

them. The warlike spirit which had made Egypt the 
first world power had endured but a few generations, 
and a naturally peaceful people were returning to their 
accustomed peaceful life; while at the very moment 
when this reversion to their old manner of living was 
taking place, the eastern Mediterranean and the Libyan 
tribes offered the Pharaoh an excellent class of mercen- 
ary soldiery which under such circumstances he could 
not fail to utilize (PA, IV, 15, 2-17=111, 8; Ibid. IV, 3, 
10 f; BAR, III, 274; MA, II, 50; MC d'Ab., No. 1136, 
p. 422; RIH, 32; BT, VI, 437; Ostracon, Louvre, Inv., 
2262; Dever., Cat., p. 202; Rec, 16, 64; BK, 9). 

316. While the wars in Asia had not recovered the 
empire of Thutmose III, all Palestine and possibly some 
of southern Syria continued to pay tribute to the Phar- 
aoh, while on the south the boundary of the Empire 
was as before at Napata, below the fourth cataract. 
The wealth thus gained still served high purposes. Art, 
though now decadent, still lived. Nothing better was 
ever produced by the Egyptian sculptor than the superb 
statue of the youthful Ramses, which forms the chef 
d'ceuvre of the Turin Museum; and even colossal 
statues like those of Abu Simbel are sometimes fine 
portraits. However much the refinement of the Eigh- 
teenth Dynasty may be wanting in the great hall at 
Karnak, it is nevertheless the most impressive building 
in Egypt, and at the last, as even Ruskin admits, size 
does tell. Nor should it be forgotten that the same 
architects produced Ramses' mortuary temple, the 
Ramesseum, a building not inferior in refined beauty 
to the best works of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Again no 
visitor to the temple of Abu Simbel will ever forget the 
solemn grandeur of this lonely sanctuary looking out 
upon the river from the sombre cliffs. But among the 



320 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

host of buildings which Ramses exacted from his archi- 
tects, there were unavoidably many which were devoid 
of all life and freshness, or like his addition to the 
Luxor temple, heavy, vulgar and of very slovenly 
workmanship. All such buildings were emblazoned 
with gayly coloured reliefs, interesting as compositions, 
but often badly drawn, depicting the valiant deeds of 
the Pharaoh in his various wars, especially, as we have 
already noticed, his desperate defence at the battle of 
Kadesh. 

317. This last incident was not only influential in 
graphic art; it also wrought powerfully upon the imag- 
ination of the court poets, one of w T hom produced a 
prose poem on the battle, which displays a good deal of 
literary skill, and is the nearest approach to the epic to 
be found in Egyptian literature. A copy of this com- 
position on papyrus was made by a scribe named 
Pentewere (Pentaur), who was misunderstood by early 
students of the document to be the author of the poem. 
The real author is unknown, although "Pentaur" still 
commonly enjoys the distinction. In manner this 
heroic poem strikes a new note; but it came at a period 
too late in the history of the nation to be the impulse 
toward a really great epic. The martial age and the 
creative spirit were passed in Egypt (ELAE ; GLWBL ; 
BAR, III, 305-315). 

In the tale, however, the Nineteenth Dynasty really 
showed great fertility, combined with a spontaneous 
naturalism, which quite swept away all trace of the 
artificialities of the Middle Kingdom. Already in the 
Middle Kingdom and probably earlier, there had 
grown up collections of artless folk-tales woven often 
about a historical motive, and such tales, clothed 
in the simple language of the people, had early is 



THE EMPIRE OF RAMSES II 321 

the Eighteenth Dynasty gained sufficient literary 
respectability to be put into writing. While the 
Eighteenth Dynasty possessed such tales as these, yet 
by far the larger part of our surviving manuscripts 
of this class date from the Nineteenth Dynasty and 
later. It is now that we find the story of the conflict 
between the Hyksos king, Apophis, and Sekenenre at 
Thebes, a tale of which the lost conclusion doubtless 
contained a popular version of the expulsion of the 
Hyksos (p. 176). The people now loved to dwell upon 
the exploits of Thutmose Ill's commanders, like the 
tale of Thutiy and his capture of Joppa, perhaps the 
prototype of "AH Baba and the Forty Thieves" (p. 238). 
But the artless charm of the story of the doomed prince 
quite surpasses such historical tales. It furnishes the 
earliest known example of that almost universal motive 
in which a youth must pass through some ordeal or 
competition in order to win a wife. A pastoral tale of 
idyllic simplicity represents two brothers as living 
together, the elder being married and a householder, 
while the younger dwells with him much after the man- 
ner of a son. At the hands of his elder brother's wife, 
there then befell the younger an adventure later appro- 
priated for the Hebrew hero, Joseph. The number of 
such tales must have been legion, and in Greek times 
they furnished all that many Greek writers, or even the 
priest, Manetho, knew of early Egyptian kings. 

While much of such literature is poetic in content and 
spirit, it lacks poetic form. Such form, however, was 
not wanting. Besides the prescribed and formal 
poems in praise of the Pharaoh or the gods, there were 
many love-songs, the oldest in the world, which belong 
among the best contributed by the early East. Re- 
ligious poems, songs and hymns are now very numerous, 



322 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

and some of them display distinct literary character. 
We shall revert to them again in discussing the religion 
of this age. Numerous letters from scribes and 
officials of the time, exercises and practice letters com- 
posed by pupils of the scribal schools, bills, temple 
records and accounts, — all these serve to fill in the 
colour and detail in a picture of unusual fullness and 
interest (ELAE; GLWBL; MCP; PTAG). 

318. In religion the age was moving rapidly. The 
state, always closely connected with religion, was be- 
coming more and more a religious institution, designed 
to exalt and honour the gods through its head, the 
Pharaoh. The state was thus being gradually distorted 
to fulfill one function at the expense of all the rest, and 
its wealth and economic resources were being slowly 
engulfed, until its industrial processes should become 
but incidents in the maintenance of the gods. The 
priesthood of Amon was the strongest influence in this 
direction. The High Priest of Amon, as head of the 
sacerdotal organization embracing all the priesthoods 
of the country, controlled a most influential political 
faction. Hence it was that under Merneptah (Ramses 
IPs son and successor), and possibly already under 
Ramses himself, the High Priest of Amon was able 
to go further and to install his son as his own successor, 
a very dangerous precedent. Thus there was gradually 
arising the sacerdotal state described by Diodorus, upon 
which the Egyptian priests of Greek times looked back 
as upon a golden age. As the inward content of the 
prevailing religion had already long been determined 
by the dominant priesthood, so now its outward mani- 
festations were being elaborated by them into a vast 
and inflexible system, and the popularity of every 
Pharaoh with the priesthood was determined by the 



THE EMPIRE OF RAMSES II 323 

degree of his acquiescence in its demands (BAR, III, 
618; 640; IV, 4). 

319. Though the state religion was made up of 
formalities, the Pharaohs were not without their own 
ethical standards, and these were not wholly a matter of 
appearances. The things for which these kings prayed, 
however, were not character nor the blameless life. It 
is material things which they desire. A higher type of 
personal religion was developing among the better class 
of the people. A fine hymn to Amon, popular at this 
time, contains many of the old ideas prevalent in the 
Aton-faith, while other religious poems show that a 
personal relation is gradually growing up between the 
worshipper and his god, so that he sees in his god the 
friend and protector of men. Man feels also the sense 
of sin and cries out: "Punish me not for my many 
sins." The proverbial wisdom of the time shows much 
of the same spirit. Whereas it formerly inculcated only 
correct behaviour, it now exhorts to hate evil, and to 
abhor what the god abhors. Prayer should be the 
silent aspiration of the heart and to Thoth the wise man 
prays, " O thou sweet Well for the thirsty in the desert ! 
It is closed up for him who speaks, but it is open for him 
who keeps silence. When he who keeps silence comes, 
lo he finds the Well." The poisonous power of the 
magical literature now everywhere disseminated by the 
priests gradually stifled these aspirations of the middle 
class, and these the last symptoms of ethical and moral 
life in the religion of Egypt slowly disappeared (BAR, 
IV, 470; BIHC, XXVI; PA, II, 8, 6; Ibid, 6, 5-6; 
EHEL; PSall., I, 8, 2 fi.). 

It is at this time that we gain our sole glimpse into 
the religious beliefs of the common people. The poor 
man had no place amid the magnificence of the state 



324 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

temples, nor could he offer anything worthy the atten- 
tion of a god of such splendour. He could only resort 
to the host of minor genii or spirits of mirth and music, 
the demi-gods, who, frequenting this or that limited 
region, had local interest and inclination to assist the 
humble in their daily cares and needs. Besides these 
and the old kings, the foreign gods of Syria, brought in 
by the hosts of Asiatic slaves, appear also among those 
to whom the folk appeal; Baal, Kedesh, Astarte, 
Reshep, Anath and Sutekh are not uncommon names 
upon the votive tablets of the time. Animal worship 
now also begins to appear both among the people and 
in official circles (EHEL). 

320. The young Pharaoh under whom these mo- 
mentous transitions were slowly taking place was too 
plastic in dealing with them for us to discover the 
manner of man he was. His unscrupulous appropria- 
tion of the monuments of his ancestors does not pre- 
possess us in his favour. In person he was tall and 
handsome, with features of dreamy and almost effemi- 
nate beauty, in no wise suggestive of the manly traits 
which he certainly possessed. After his nearly fifteen 
years of arduous campaigning, in which he more than 
redeemed the almost fatal blunder at Kadesh, he was 
quite ready to enjoy the well earned peace. He was 
inordinately vain and made far more ostentatious dis- 
play of his wars on his monuments than was ever done 
by Thutmose III. He loved ease and pleasure and 
gave himself up without restraint to voluptuous enjoy- 
ments. He had an enormous harem, and the de- 
scendants of his nearly two hundred children became a 
Ramessid class of nobles whom we still find over four 
hundred years later bearing among their titles the name 
Ramses, not as a patronymic, but as the designation of 



THE EMPIRE OF RAMSES II 325 

a class or rank. The sons of his youth accompanied 
him in his wars, and according to Diodorus one of 
them was in command of each of the divisions of his 
army. His favourite among them was Khamwese, 
whom he made High Priest of Ptah at Memphis (Diod., 
I, 47; BK, 34). 

321. As the years passed Ramses celebrated no less 
than nine jubilees, erecting a forest of obelisks to com- 
memorate them. His was the sunset glory of the vener- 
able line which he represented. One by one the sons 
of his youth were taken from him until twelve were 
gone, and the thirteenth was the eldest and heir to the 
throne. Yet still the old king lived on. He lost the 
vitality for aggressive rule. The Libyans and the 
maritime peoples allied with them, Lycians, Sardinians 
and the ^Egean races, whom he had once swept from his 
coasts or impressed into the service of his army, now 
entered the western Delta with impunity, or even 
pushed forward and settled there. Amid the splendours 
of his magnificent residence in the eastern Delta the 
threatening conditions at its opposite extremity never 
roused him from the lethargy into which he had fallen. 
Finally, having ruled for sixty-seven years, and being 
over ninety years of age, he passed away (1225 B. c.) 
none too soon for the redemption of his empire. We 
are able to look into the withered face of the hoary 
nonogenarian, evidently little changed from what he 
was in those last days of splendour in the city of Ramses, 
and the resemblance to the face of the youth in the 
noble Turin statue is still very marked (BAR, III, 
543-560). 

322. Probably no Pharaoh ever left a more profound 
impression upon his age. A quarter of a century later 
began a line of ten kings bearing his name. One of 



326 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

them prayed that he might be granted a reign of sixty- 
seven years like that of his great ancestor, and all of 
them with varying success imitated his glory. He had 
set his stamp upon them all for a hundred and fifty 
years, and it was impossible to be a Pharaoh without 
being a Ramses (BAR, IV, 471). 



XXIII 

THE FINAL DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE: MERNEPTAH 
AND RAMSES III 

323. Egypt was now on the defensive. This was the 
result of conditions both within and without. Within, 
the spirit which had stirred the heroes of the Asiatic 
conquests had now vanished ; without all was turbulence 
and unrest. The restless maritime peoples of the 
northern Mediterranean, creeping along the coasts, 
sought plunder or places for permanent settlement, and 
together with the Libyans on the one hand and the 
peoples of remoter Asia Minor on the other, they broke 
in wave on wave upon the borders of the Pharaoh's 
empire. Egypt was inevitably thrown on the defensive. 
For the next sixty years after the death of Ramses II 
we shall be able to watch the struggle of the Pharaohs 
merely to preserve the empire, which it had been the 
ambition of their great ancestors rather to extend. At 
this crisis in the affairs of the nation, the enfeebled 
Ramses was succeeded by his thirteenth son, Merneptah, 
now far advanced in years. Thus one old man suc- 
ceeded another upon the throne. The death of Ramses 
was not at once followed by any disturbance in the 
Asiatic dominions. The northern border in Syria was 
still as far north as the upper Orontes valley, including 
at least part of the Amorite country. With the Hittite 
kingdom he enjoyed undisturbed peace, even sending 

327 



32S THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

them shiploads of grain in time of famine. By the end 
of his second year, however, he had reason to rue the 
good will shown his father's ancient enemy, whom he 
now discovered to be involved in the incursions of the 
maritime peoples in the western Delta in alliance with 
the Libyans. Thereupon the year three (about 1223 
B. c.) found widespread revolt against Merneptah in 
Asia from Askalon at the very gates of Egypt, to the 
tribes of Israel and all western Syria-Palestine as far as 
it was controlled by the Pharaoh; all these rose against 
their Egyptian overlord. We have nothing but a song 
of triumph to tell us of the ensuing war; but it is evident 
that Merneptah appeared in Asia with his army in his 
third year. The revolting cities were severely punished 
and all Palestine was again humiliated and brought 
completely under the yoke, including some of the tribes 
of Israel, who had now secured a footing in Palestine, 
as we saw at the close of the Eighteenth and opening 
of the Nineteenth Dynasty (pp. 284 jf.). They were 
sufficiently amalgamated to be referred to as "Israel," 
and they here make their first appearance in history as 
a people (BAR, III, 580, 1.24; 606; 603; 617; 629-35). 
324. Meantime the situation in the west was serious 
in the extreme; the hordes of Tehenu-Libyans were 
pushing further into the Delta from their settlements 
along the northern coast of Africa west of Egypt. It is 
possible that some of their advance settlers had even 
reached the canal of Heliopolis. Little is known of the 
Libyans at this time. Immediately upon the Egyptian 
border seems to have been the territory of the Tehenu; 
further west came the tribes known to the Egyptians as 
Lebu or Rebu, the Libyans of the Greeks, by which 
name also the Egyptians designated these western 
peoples as a whole. On the extreme west, and extend- 



THE DECLINE: MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 329 

ing far into then unknown regions, lived the Meshwesh, 
or Maxyes of Herodotus. They were all doubtless the 
ancestors of the Berber tribes of North Africa. They 
were far from being totally uncivilized barbarians, but 
were skilled in war, well armed and capable of serious 
enterprises against the Pharaoh. Now rapidly con- 
solidating under good leadership, they gave promise of 
becoming an aggressive and formidable state, with its 
frontier not ten days' march from the Pharaoh's 
residence in the eastern Delta. The whole western 
Delta was strongly tinctured with Libyan blood and 
Libyan families were now constantly crossing into it. 
Others had penetrated to the two northern oases which 
lie southwest of the Fayum. Meryey, king of the 
Libyans, forced the Tehenu to join him and, supported 
by roving bands of maritime adventurers from the 
coast, he invaded Egypt. He brought his wife and his 
children with him, as did also his allies, and the move- 
ment was clearly an immigration as well as an invasion. 
The allies were the now familiar Sherden or Sardinians; 
the Shekelesh, possibly the Sikeli natives of early Sicily; 
Ekwesh, perhaps Achseans, the Lycians, who had preyed 
on Egypt since the days of Amenhotep III; and the Ter- 
esh, doubtless the Tyrsenians or Etruscans. It is with 
these wandering marauders that the peoples of Europe 
emerge for the first time upon the arena of history, 
although we have seen them in their material documents 
since the Middle Kingdom. This crossing to Africa by 
the northern Mediterranean peoples is but one of many 
such ventures which in prehistoric ages brought over 
the white race whom we know as Libyans. Judging from 
the numbers who were afterward slain or captured, the 
Libyan king must have commanded at least some twenty 
thousand men or more (BAR, III, 576; 579/.; 595), 



330 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

325. Merneptah, at last aroused to the situation, was 
fortifying Heliopolis and Memphis, when news of the 
danger reached him late in March of his fifth year. 
In fourteen days his forces were ready to move, and on 
the morning of April fifteenth, near the Pharaoh's 
chateau at Periere in the western Delta, battle was 
joined. The contest lasted six hours when the Egyptian 
archers drove the allies from the field with immense 
loss. King Meryey had fled as soon as he saw the action 
going against him. He made good his escape, but all 
his household furniture and his family fell into the hands 
of the Egyptians. The energetic pursuit resulted in a 
great slaughter and many prisoners. Xo less than nine 
thousand of the invaders fell, of whom at least one-third 
were among the maritime allies of the Libyans; while 
propably as many more were taken prisoner. Among 
the dead were six sons of the Libyan king. The booty 
was enormous. The hostile camp was burned; and 
with the boot}' came news to the Pharaoh, that the 
Libyans had repudiated and dethroned their discomfited 
king and chosen another in his place who was hostile to 
him and would fight him. It was evident therefore that 
the aggressive party in Libya had fallen and that no 
further trouble from that quarter need be apprehended 
during the reign of Merneptah at least (BAR, III, 
569-617). 

326. The constant plundering at the hands of Libyan 
hordes, which the people of the western Delta had 
endured for nearly a generation was now ended. 
Not only was a great national danger averted, but an 
intolerable situation was relieved. The people sang: 

The kings are overthrown, saying, "Salami " 

Not one holds up his head among the nine nations of the bow. 

Wasted is Tehenu, 



THE DECLINE: MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 331 

The Hittite Land is pacified, 

Plundered is the Canaan, with every evil, 

Carried off is Askalon, 

Seized upon is Gezer, 

Yenoam is made as a thing not existing. 

Israel is desolated, her seed is not, 

Palestine has become a [defenceless] widow for Egypt. 

All lands are united, they are pacified; 

Every one that is turbulent is bound by king Merneptah. 

(BAR, III, 616-617; 603 ft.) 



327. It is this concluding song, reverting also to 
Merneptah's triumphs in Asia, which tells us nearly all 
that we know of his Asiatic war. It is a kind of sum- 
mary of all his victories, and forms a fitting conclusion 
of the rejoicing of the people. 

328. Thus the sturdy old Pharaoh, although bowed 
down with years, had repelled from his empire the first 
assault, premonitory of the coming storm. He reigned 
at least five years longer, apparently enjoying profound 
peace in the north. He strengthened his Asiatic frontier 
with a fortress bearing his name, and in the south he 
quelled a rebellion in Nubia. Too old to gather from 
the quarries the blocks for great buildings, Merneptah 
brutally destroyed the monuments of his forefathers. 
He made a quarry of the noble sanctuary of Amenhotep 
III on the western plain, ruthlessly tore down its walls 
and split up its superb statues to serve as blocks in his 
own mortuary temple. We even find Merneptah's 
name constantly on the monuments of his father, who 
in this respect had set him a notorious example (PA, VI, 
pi. 4, 1. 13-pl. 5, 1. 5; BAR, III, 606, note a; II, 878 ff.; 
Ill, 602-617). 

329. After a reign of at least ten years Merneptah 
passed away (1215 b. c.) and was buried at Thebes in 
the valley with his ancestors. His body has recently 



332 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

been found there. However much we may despise him 
for his shameful destruction of the greatest works of his 
ancestors, it- must be admitted that at an advanced age, 
when such responsibility must have sat heavily, he 
manfully met a grave crisis in the history of his country, 
which might have thrown it into the hands of a foreign 
dynasty. 

330. The laxity which had accompanied the suc- 
cessive rule of two old men gave ample opportunity for 
intrigue, conspiracy and the machinations of rival 
factions. The death of Merneptah was the beginning 
of a conflict for the throne which lasted for many years. 
As in the Roman Empire, we discern the influence of 
provincial power, as the viceroy of Nubia, one Seti, 
probably thrusts aside the second of the two pretenders 
Amenmeses and Memeptah-Siptah, who now followed 
each other. This Seti, the second of the name, seems 
to have ruled with some success ; but his lease of power 
was brief; the long uncurbed nobility, the hosts of 
mercenaries in the armies, the powerful priesthoods, the 
numerous foreigners in positions of rank at court, 
ambitious pretenders and their adherents, — all these 
aggressive and conflicting influences demanded for 
their control a strong hand and unusual qualities of 
statesmanship in the ruler. These qualities Seti II did 
not possess, and he fell a victim to conditions which 
would have mastered many a stronger man than he 
(BAR, III, 640-644; 651). * 

331. With the disappearance of Seti II those who had 
overthrown him were unable to gain the coveted power 
of which they had deprived him. Complete anarchy 
ensued. The whole country fell into the hands of the 
nobles, chiefs and rulers of towns; famine and violence 
were supreme. Profiting by the helplessness of the 



THE DECLINE: MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 333 

people and the preoccupation of the native rulers, one of 
those Syrians who had held an official position at the 
court seized the crown, or at least the power, and ruled 
in tyranny and violence (BAR, IV, 398). 

332. As might have been expected the Libyans were 
not long in perceiving the helplessness of Egypt. Im- 
migration across the western frontier of the Delta began 
again; plundering bands wandered among the towns 
from the vicinity of Memphis to the Mediterranean. 
At this juncture, about 1200 B. c, there arose one 
Setnakht, a strong man of uncertain origin, but possibly 
a descendant of the old line of Seti I and Ramses II. 
Although he ruled but a year or two, he succeeded in 
exterminating the pretenders and restoring order. 
Before he died (1198 b. c.) he named as his successor 
his son, Ramses, the third of the name, who had already 
been of assistance to him in the government (BAR, IV, 
40, 11. 20-22; 405; 399). 

333. With the Ramessid line, now headed by Ramses 
III, Manetho begins a new dynasty, the Twentieth, 
although the old line was evidently already interrupted 
after Merneptah. Ramses III immediately perfected 
the organization for military service, depending more 
and more upon the foreign mercenaries as the perma- 
nent element in his army. The Libyan question and 
the situation in the western Delta were now more 
serious even than in Merneptah's day. The northern 
Mediterranean peoples, whom the Egyptians designated 
the " peoples of the sea," were showing themselves there 
in ever increasing numbers. Among these, two in par- 
ticular whom we have not met before, the Thekel and 
the Peleset, better known as the Philistines of Hebrew 
history, were prominent. The Peleset were one of the 
early tribes of Crete, and the Thekel may have been an- 



334 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

other branch of the pre-Greek Sikeli or Sicilians. These, 
accompanied by contingents of Denyen \ Danaoi), Sher- 
den, Weshesh and Shekelesh, had begun a southward 
movement, some of them impelled by pressure of Indo- 
Germanic peoples (among them the later Phrygians), 
pushing into Asia Elinor in their rear. Their own racial 
affinities are unknown. Moving gradually southward 
in Syria, some of these immigrants had now advanced 
perhaps as far as the upper waters of the Orontes and 
the kingdom of Amor; while the more venturesome of 
their ships were coasting along the Delta and stealing 
into the mouths of the river on plundering expeditions. 
They readily fell in with the plans of Themer, the 
Libyan king, to invade and plunder the rich and fer- 
tile Delta. By land and water they advanced into 
the western Delta where Ramses III promptly met and 
overthrew them. Their ships were destroyed or cap- 
tured and their army beaten back with enormous loss. 
Over twelve thousand five hundred were slain upon 
the field and at least a thousand captives were taken. 
Of the killed a large proportion were from the ranks 
of the sea-rovers. To strengthen his frontier against 
the Libyans, Ramses now built a town and stronghold 
named after himself upon the western road where it left 
the Delta (MAAG; BAR, IV, 402; 44; 39; 52-55; 42; 
57/.; 47,1.73; 102; 107; III,5SS; 600). 

334. Meanwhile the rising tide from the north was 
threatening gradually to overwhelm the Egyptian 
Empire; we have seen its outermost waves breaking on 
the shores of the Delta. It was now in full motion 
southward through Syria. Its hosts were approaching 
both by land, with their families in curious, heavy, two- 
wheeled ox-carts, and by sea in a numerous fleet that 
skirted the Svrian coast. Well armed and skilled in 



THE DECLINE: MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 335 

warfare as the invaders were, the Syrian city-states 
were unable to withstand their onset. They overran 
all the Hittite country of northern Syria as far as 
Carchemish on the Euphrates, past Arvad on the 
Phoenician coast, and up the Orontes valley to the 
kingdom of Amor, which they devastated. The Syrian 
dominions of the Hittites must have been lost and the 
Hittite power in Syria completely broken. The fleet 
visited Alasa, or Cyprus; and nowhere was an effec- 
tive resistance offered them. In Amor they established 
a central camp and apparently halted for a time (BAR, 
IV, 64; 77). 

335. Ramses III threw himself with great energy into 
the preparations for repelling the attack. He fortified 
his Syrian frontier and rapidly gathered a fleet, which 
he distributed in the northern harbours. He then set 
out for Syria to lead the campaign himself. Where the 
land-battle took place we are unable to determine, but 
as the Northerners had advanced to Amor, it was at 
most not further north than that region. We learn 
nothing from Ramses Ill's records concerning it beyond 
vague and general statements of the defeat of the enemy, 
although in his reliefs we see his Sherden mercenaries 
breaking through the scattered lines of the enemy and 
plundering their ox-carts, bearing the women and chil- 
dren and the belongings of the Northerners. Ramses 
was also able to reach the scene of the naval battle, 
probably in one of the northern harbours on the coast 
of Phoenicia, early enough to participate in the action 
from the neighbouring shore. He had manned his fleet 
with masses of the dreaded Egyptian archers, whose fire 
was so effective that the ranks of the heavy armed 
Northerners were completely decimated before they 
could approach within boarding distance. As the 



336 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

Egyptians then advanced to board, the enemy's ships 
were thrown into confusion and many were capsized. 
Those who escaped the fleet and swam ashore were 
captured by the waiting Egyptians on the beach. The 
Pharaoh's suzerainty, at least as far north as Amor, 
could not now be questioned by the invaders. They 
continued to arrive in Syria, only to become vassals of 
Egypt, paying tribute into the treasury of the Pharaoh. 
The Egyptian Empire in Asia had again been saved and 
Ramses returned to his Delta residence to enjoy a well- 
earned triumph (BAR, IV, 59-82; 403). 

336. He was now given but a short respite, for another 
migration of the peoples in the far west caused an over- 
flow which again threatened the Delta in the eleventh 
year of the king. The Meshwesh, a tribe living behind 
the Libyans, invaded the Libyan country and laid it 
waste, thus forcing the unfortunate Libyans, already 
twice punished, into another alliance against Egypt. 
The leader of the movement was Meshesher, son of 
Keper, king of the Meshwesh, whose firm purpose was 
to migrate and settle in the Delta. Ramses attacked 
the allies under the walls of Hatsho, his frontier fortress, 
and put them to flight. Meshesher, the chief of the 
Meshwesh, was slain and his father Keper was cap- 
tured, two thousand one hundred and seventy-five of 
their followers fell, while two thousand and fifty-two, of 
whom over a fourth were females, were taken captive. 
The western tribes had thus been hurled back from the 
borders of the Delta for the third successive time, and 
Ramses had no occasion to apprehend any further ag- 
gressions from that quarter. The expansive power of 
the Libyan peoples, although by no means exhausted, 
now no longer appeared in united national action, but 
as they had done from prehistoric times they continued 



THE DECLINE: MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 337 

to sift gradually into the Delta in scattered and des- 
ultory migration, not regarded by the Pharaoh as a 
source of danger (BAR, IV, 83-114; 405; 224; 145). 

337. Following closely upon the last Libyan cam- 
paign, Ramses found it necessary again to appear in 
Amor with his army. The limits and the course of the 
campaign are but obscurely hinted at in the meagre 
records now surviving. He stormed at least five strong 
cities, one of which was in Amor; another was perhaps 
Kadesh; and two, one of which was called Ereth, were 
defended by Hittites. He probably did not penetrate 
far into the Hittite territory, although its cities were 
rapidly falling away from the Hittite king and much 
weakened by the attacks of the sea-peoples. It was the 
last hostile passage between the Pharaoh and the 
Hittites; both empires were swiftly declining to their 
fall, and in the annals of Egypt we never again hear of 
the Hittites in Syria. He now organized the Asiatic 
possessions of Egypt as stably as possible, the boundary 
very evidently not being any further north than that of 
Merneptah, that is, just including the Amorite kingdom 
on the upper Orontes. To ensure the stability which he 
desired he built new fortresses wherever necessary in 
Syria and Palestine; somewhere in Syria he also erected 
a temple of Amon, containing a great image of the 
state god, before which the Asiatic dynasts were obliged 
to declare their fealty to Ramses by depositing their 
tribute in its presence every year. Only a revolt of the 
Beduin of Seir interrupted the peaceful government of 
the Pharaoh in Asia from this time forth (BAR, IV, 
115-135; 141; 219; 406; 404). 

338. The influence of Egyptian commerce and ad- 
ministration in Syria was evident in one important 
particular especially, for it was now that the cumbrous 



338 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

and inconvenient clay tablet was gradually supple- 
mented in Syria by the handy papyrus. With the papy- 
rus paper, the hand customarily written upon it in 
Egypt now made its way into Phoenicia, where before 
the tenth century b. c. it developed into an alphabet 
of consonants, which was quickly transmitted to the 
Ionian Greeks and thence to Europe (BAR, IV, 576; 
582). 

339. The suppression of occasional disorders in 
Nubia, caused no disturbance of the profound peace, 
which now settled down upon the Empire. Intercourse 
and commerce with the outside world were now fostered 
by the Pharaoh as in the great days. The temples of 
Amon, Re, and Ptah had each its own fleet upon the 
Mediterranean or the Red Sea, transporting to the god's 
treasury the products of Phoenicia, Syria and Punt. 
Other fleets of the Pharaoh brought copper and mal- 
achite from Sinai and its now familiar wealth from 
Punt. Navigation was now perhaps on a larger scale 
than ever before. Ramses tells of a sacred barge of 
Amon at Thebes, which was two hundred and twenty- 
four feet long, built in his yards, of enormous timbers 
of cedar of Lebanon (BAR, IV, 211; 270; 328; 407- 
409; 209). 

340. The Pharaoh's wealth now enabled him to 
undertake buildings and works of public utility. 
Throughout the kingdom, and especially in Thebes and 
the royal residence, he planted numerous trees, offering 
grateful shade, in a land devoid of natural forests. He 
also resumed building, at a standstill since the death of 
Ramses II. On the western plain of Thebes, at the 
point now called Medinet Habu, he began a large and 
splendid temple to Amon, which, as it grew from year 
to year, became a vast record of the king's achievements 



THE DECLINE : MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 339 

in war which the modern visitor may read, tracing it 
from year to year as he passes from the earliest halls 
in the rear to the latest courts and pylon at the front. 
Here he may see the hordes of the North in battle with 
Ramses' Sherden mercenaries. The first naval battle 
on salt water, of which we know anything, is here de- 
picted, and in these reliefs we may study the armour, 
clothing, weapons, war-ships and equipment of these 
northern peoples with whose advent Europe for the 
first time emerges upon the stage of the early world. 
Other buildings of his have for the most part perished; 
a small temple of Amon at Karnak, and a sanctuary for 
Khonsu, only begun by Ramses III, still survive. In 
the residence city he laid out a magnificent quarter 
and garden for Amon, possessing nearly eight thou- 
sand slaves for its service. He also erected in the 
city a temple of Sutekh in the temonos of Ramses IFs 
temple. The art displayed by these buildings, in so 
far as they have survived, is clearly in a decadent stage. 
The lines are heavy and indolent, the colonnades have 
none of the old-time soaring vigour; they visibly labour 
under the burden imposed upon them, expressing the 
sluggish spirit of the decadent architect. The work 
also is careless and slovenly in execution. The reliefs 
which cover the vast surfaces of the Medinet Habu 
temple are with few exceptions but weak imitations of 
the fine sculptures of Seti I at Karnak, badly drawn 
and executed without feeling. Only here and there 
do we find a flash of the old-time power (BAR, IV, 213; 
215; 410; 195-215; 1-26; 69-82; 250-265; 311-328; 
225; 362; 369). 

341. The imitation so evident in the art of Ramses 
Ill's reign is characteristic of the time in all respects. 
The inspiring figure of a young and active Pharaoh 



340 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

hurrying his armies from frontier to frontier of his 
empire and repeatedly hurling back the most formidable 
invasions Egypt had ever suffered, awoke no response 
in the conventional soul of the priestly scribe, whose lot 
it was to write the record of these things for the temple 
wall. He possessed only the worn and long spent cur- 
rency of the older dynasties from which he drew whole 
hymns, songs and lists to be furbished up and made to 
do sen-ice again in perpetuating the glory of a really able 
and heroic ruler. Even the king himself considered it 
his highest purpose to restore and reproduce the times 
of Ramses II. 

342. This was especially evident in his attitude to- 
ward the religious conditions inherited from the Nine- 
teenth Dynasty. He made no effort to shake off the 
priestly influences with which the crown was encum- 
bered. The temples were fast becoming a grave 
political and economic menace. In the face of this fact 
Ramses III continued the policy of his ancestors, and 
with the most lavish liberality poured the wealth of the 
royal house into the sacred coffers. The opulent 
splendour with which the rituals of the great gods were 
daily observed beggars description. In making the 
great temple balances for weighing the offerings to Re 
at Heliopolis nearly two hundred and twelve pounds of 
gold and four hundred and sixty-one pounds of silver 
were consumed. The reader may peruse pages of such 
descriptions in the great Papyrus Harris, of which we 
shall later give some account. Such magnificence, 
while it might frequently be due to incidental gifts of 
the king, must nevertheless be supported by an enor- 
mous income, derived from a vast fortune in lands, 
slaves and revenues. The records of Ramses III for 
the first and only time in the course of Egyptian history, 



THE DECLINE : MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 341 

enable us to determine the total amount of property 
owned and controlled by the temples. They owned not 
less than one and a quarter and very probably two 
per cent, of the population as slaves. In lands we find 
the sacred endowments amounting to fifteen per cent, 
of the available land of the country. These are the only 
items in the temple estates which can be safely compared 
with the total national wealth and resources; but they 
by no means complete the list of property held by the 
temples. They owned nearly a half million head of 
large and small cattle; their combined fleets numbered 
eighty-eight vessels, some fifty-three workshops and 
ship-yards consumed a portion of the raw materials, 
which they received as income; while in Syria, Kush 
and Egypt they owned in all one hundred and sixty-nine 
towns. When we remember that all this vast property 
in a land of less than ten thousand square miles and 
some five or six million inhabitants was entirely exempt 
from taxation it will be seen that the economic equilib- 
rium of the state was endangered (BAR, IV, 363; 199; 
202; 198-210; 256; 285; 151-412; 146-150; 166/.). 
343. These extreme conditions were aggravated by 
the fact that no proper proportion had been observed 
in the distribution of gifts to the gods. By far too large 
a share of them had fallen to the lot of the insatiable 
Amon, the demands for whose innumerable temples 
far exceeded those of all others put together. In his 
festal calendar, now introduced by Ramses III, we 
find that there was an annual feast day of Amon on an 
average every three days, not counting the monthly 
feasts. Yet Ramses III later lengthened even the 
feasts of this calendar. As in the days of the Eighteenth 
Dynasty conquerors, the bulk of the spoil from his wars 
went into the treasury of Amon. The result of this 



342 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

long continued policy was inevitable. Of the nearly 
three quarters of a million acres of land held by the 
temples, Amon owned over five hundred and eighty- 
three thousand, over five times as much as his nearest 
competitor, Re of Heliopolis. Of the fifteen per cent, 
of the lands of the entire country held by all the temples, 
Amon thus owned over two-thirds. In other items of 
Anion's wealth the same proportion is observable. His 
estate and his revenues, second only to those of the king, 
now assumed an important economic role in the state, 
and the political power wielded by a community of 
priests who controlled such vast wealth was from now 
on a force which no Pharaoh could ignore. Other 
similar prerogatives also now came to Amon. His 
High Priest had in the Eighteenth Dynasty become 
head of all the priesthoods of Egypt; now his Theban 
temple became the sacerdotal capital, where the records 
of the other temples were kept, and the furtive power 
of Amon was thus gradually extended over all the 
sacred estates in the land (BAR, IV, 164; 146; 189- 
226; 219; 218; 139-145; 236-237; 25-34; 190; 224; 
405; 167; 165; 170/.). 

344. It is a mistake to suppose, as is commonly done, 
that Ramses III was solely or even chiefly responsible 
for these conditions. They began in the enormous 
gifts to the temples, especially to Amon, by the con- 
querors of the Eighteenth Dynasty. By generations of 
this policy the vast wealth of the temples had gradually 
been accumulated, and against the insatiable priesthoods 
long accustomed to the gratification of unlimited ex- 
actions, Ramses III was unable and indeed did not 
attempt to make a stand. Yet the treasury, with its 
income gradually shrinking, must have sorely felt the 
draughts upon it. It was now with the greatest dim*- 



THE DECLINE : MERNEPTAH AND RAMSES III 343 

culty that day-labourers for the state could wring their 
wages of grain from the complacent scribal overseer. 
Thus while the poor in the employ of the state were 
starving at the door of an empty treasury, the store- 
houses of the gods were groaning with plenty, and 
Anion was yearly receiving over two hundred and five 
thousand bushels of grain for the offerings at his annual 
feasts alone (BAR, IV, 202; 157 /.; 174; ELAE, 
124-126). 

345. The only forces which Ramses III and his 
contemporaries could bring into play against the 
powerful priestly coteries were the numerous foreigners 
among the slaves owned by the crown. These slaves 
were now largely natives of Syria, Asia Minor and 
Libya, especially Syria, and as the king found them 
more and more useful, they gradually gained high 
office in the state and at the court, especially as "royal 
butlers." It was a situation, as Erman has remarked, 
precisely like that at the court of the Egyptian sultans 
of the Middle Ages. While all was outwardly splendour 
and tranquillity and the whole nation was celebrating 
the king who had saved the Empire, the forces of decay 
which had for generations been slowly gathering in the 
state were rapidly reaching the acute stage. An insa- 
tiable and insidious priesthood commanding enormous 
wealth, a foreign army ready to serve the master who 
paid most liberally, a personal following of alien 
slaves, and a host of royal relatives and dependants, — 
these were the factors which Ramses III was constantly 
forced to manipulate and employ, each against the 
others in a situation of ever increasing difficulty and 
complication (BAR, IV, 405; 419 ff.). 

346. The first serious trouble discernible was the 
insubordination of one of the viziers. This past, the 



344 THE EMPIRE: SECOND PERIOD 

first royal jubilee was celebrated with the usual splen- 
dour at Memphis. Something over a year after this 
stately commemoration, as the old king was beginning 
to feel his years, a more serious crisis developed. In 
order to crown a pretender from the numerous harem 
children, a conspiracy against the Pharaoh's life was 
formed. Involved in it were no less than eleven harem 
officials of various ranks, five royal butlers, the com- 
mander of archers in Nubia, an overseer of the treasury, 
a general in the army named Peyes, three royal scribes 
in various offices, and several subordinate officials. 

347. At the critical moment the king's party gained full 
information of the conspiracy, and the people involved 
in the treason were all seized. The old Pharaoh, sorely 
shaken by the ordeal, and possibly suffering bodily 
injury from attempted assassination, lived to appoint a 
special court for the trial of the conspirators with the 
most impartial justice. Even now there was a bold 
attempt by the accused to influence two of the judges, 
who were guilty of such indiscretion that they were tried 
and condemned to lose nose and ears. The trials of the 
conspirators proceeded with regularity, and from the 
records of three different prosecutions we are able to 
trace the conviction of thirty-two officials of all ranks, 
including the unhappy young pretender himself. 
Meantime the thirty-second anniversary of the Phar- 
aoh's accession was celebrated with the gorgeous twenty 
days' feast customary since his twenty-second year. 
But the old king survived only twenty days more and 
before the prosecution of his would-be assassins was 
ended he passed away (1167 b. a), having ruled thirty- 
one years and forty days (BAR, IV, 361; 335; 413-415; 
416-456; 237). 



PART VII 

THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT 
EGYPT 



XXIV 

THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE 

348. The death of Ramses III introduced a long line 
of nine weaklings all of whom bore the great name 
Ramses. They were far from bearing it worthily, and 
under them the waning power of the Pharaohs declined 
swiftly to its fall in a few decades. We see Ramses IV, 
the son of Ramses III, struggling feebly with the hope- 
less situation which he inherited about 1167 b. c. 
Immediately on his accession the new king prepared 
one of the most remarkable documents which has 
reached us from the civilization of ancient Egypt, a 
huge list of his father's good works. It contained an 
enormous inventory of Ramses Ill's gifts to the three 
chief divinities of the nation, besides a statement of his 
achievements in war and of his benefactions toward the 
people of his empire. All this recorded on papyrus 
formed a huge roll one hundred and thirty feet long, 
now called Papyrus Harris, the largest document which 
has descended to us from the early orient. Accompanied 
by this extraordinary statement of his benefactions 
toward gods and men, Ramses III was laid in his 
tomb. In its efficacy in securing him unlimited favour 
with the gods there could be no doubt; and it contained 
so many prayers placed in the mouth of Ramses III on 
behalf of his son and successor, that the gods, unable 
to resist the appeals of the favourite to whom they 

347 



348 THE DECADENCE OF AXCIEXT EGYPT 

owed so much, would certainly grant his son a long" 
reign. Indeed it is clear that to this motive was due the 
production of the document. In this decadent age the 
Pharaoh was more dependent upon such means for the 
maintenance of his power than upon his own strong 
arm, and the huge papyrus thus becomes a significant 
sign of the times. With fair promises of a long reign 
the insatiable priesthoods were extorting from the 
impotent Pharaoh all they demanded, while he was 
satisfied with the assured favour of the gods (BAR, IV, 
151-412; 471). 

349. Naturally the only work of Ramses IV, of 
which we know, is an enterprise for the benefit of the 
gods, involving the dispatch of nine thousand men to 
secure building stone from the quarries of Hammamat, 
which he himself first visited. After an inglorious reign 
of six years he was succeeded in 1161 b. c. by the fifth 
Ramses, probably his son. The exploitation of the 
mines of Sinai now ceased, and the last Pharaonic name 
found there is that of Ramses IV. The Empire still 
maintained by Ramses III in Asia must have rapidly 
declined; that in Nubia was still maintained. In 
quick succession these feeble Ramessids now followed 
each other, They all excavated tombs in the Valley 
of the Kings, but we know nothing of their deeds. Now 
and again the obscurity lifts, and we catch fleeting 
glimpses of a great state tottering to its fall (BAR, IV, 
457-485). 

350. From the close of Ramses Ill's reign to the first 
years of Ramses IX, only some twenty-five or thirty 
years elapsed. The high priesthood of Amon which 
had at least once descended from father to son in the 
Nineteenth Dynasty had since become permanently 
hereditary, and now while it was passing from the hands 



THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE 349 

of Rarasesnakht to his son Amenhotep, with a single 
transmission of authority, six feeble Ramessids suc- 
ceeded each other, with ever lessening power and 
prestige. Meanwhile Amenhotep, the High Priest of 
Amon, flourished. He sumptuously restored the refec- 
tory and kitchen of the priests in the temple of his god at 
Karnak built eight hundred years before by Sesostris I. 
We see the crafty priest manipulating the pliant Pharaoh 
as he pleases, and obtaining golden decorations and 
every honour at his hands. The days when such dis- 
tinctions were the reward of valour on the battle-fields 
of Syria are long passed; and skill in priest-craft is the 
surest guarantee of preferment. As the king delivered 
the rich gifts to the High Priest he accompanied them 
with words of praise such that one is in doubt whether 
they are delivered by the sovereign to the subject or by 
the subject to his lord. All these honours were twice 
recorded by Amenhotep, on the walls of the Karnak 
temple, in a large relief showing Amenhotep receiving 
his gifts from the king, and depicting his figure in the 
same heroic stature as that of the king. In all such scenes 
from time immemorial the official appearing before the 
king had been represented as a pigmy before the tower- 
ing figure of the Pharaoh; but the High Priest of Amon 
was now rapidly growing to measure his stature with 
that of the Pharaoh himself, both on the temple wall 
and in the affairs of government (BAR, IV, 414 /.; 486- 
498). 

351. The state of disorganization and helplessness 
which was gradually evolving is revealed to us in a 
chapter from the government of the Theban necropolis, 
preserved in certain legal archives of Ramses IX's 
reign. Thebes, forsaken as a royal residence by the 
Pharaohs two hundred years before, was now rapidly 



350 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

declining, but it continued to be the burial place of all 
the royal dead. In the lonely valley behind the western 
plain, deep in the heart of the cliffs, slept the great 
emperors, decked in all the magnificence which the 
wealth of Asia had brought them. In the sixteenth year 
of Ramses IX's reign the royal tombs of the plain 
before the western cliffs were found to have been 
attacked by tomb robbers. Within a generation . 
the work of plunder continued, all the bodies of Egypt's 
kings and emperors buried at Thebes were despoiled, 
and of the whole line of Pharaohs from the beginning 
of the Eighteenth to the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, 
only one body, that of Amenhotep II, has been found 
still lying in its sarcophagus; although it had by no 
means escaped spoliation. Thus, while the tombs of 
the Egyptian emperors at Thebes were being ransacked 
and their bodies rifled and dishonoured, the empire 
which they conquered was crumbling to final ruin BAR, 
IV, 499-556 . 

352. At the accession of Ramses XII (1118 B.C.) we 
are able to discern the culmination of the tendencies 
which we have been endeavouring to trace. Before he 
had been reigning five years a local noble at Tanis 
named Xesubenebded, the Smendes of the Greeks, had 
absorbed the entire Delta and made himself king of the 
Xorth. There was now nothing for the impotent 
Pharaoh to do but retire to Thebes, — if this transfer had 
not indeed already occurred before this, — where he still 
maintained his precarious throne. Thebes was thus 
cut off from the sea and the commerce of Asia and 
Europe by a hostile kingdom in the Delta, and its 
wealth and power still more rapidly declined. The 
h Priest of Anion was now virtually at the head of a 
Theban principality, which we shall see becoming 



THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE 351 

gradually more and more a distinct political unit. 
Together with this powerful priestly rival, the Pharaoh 
continued to hold Nubia (BAR, IV, 557; 581). 

353. The swift decline of the Ramessids was quickly 
noticed and understood in Syria long before the revolu- 
tion which resulted in the independence of the Delta. 
The Thekel and Peleset (Philistines), whose invasion 
Ramses III had for a time halted, as we have before 
stated, had continued to arrive in Syria. They had 
moved gradually southward, pushing before them the 
Amorites and scattered remnants of the Hittites, who 
were thus forced southward into Palestine, where they 
were found later by the Hebrews. By 1115 B.C. the 
Thekel were already established as an independent 
kingdom at Dor, just south of the seaward end of Car- 
mel. As we do not find them mentioned in the surviv- 
ing records of the Hebrews, they must have merged into 
the larger mass of the Philistines, whose cities gradually 
extended probably from Beth-Shean in the Jordan 
valley westward and southward, through the plain of 
Esdrselon or Megiddo to the southern sea-plain, cutting 
off the northern tribes of Israel from their kinsmen in 
the south. Continually replenished with new arrivals 
by sea, they threatened to crush Israel, as they had done 
the kingdom of Amor, before the Hebrew tribal leaders 
should have welded the Palestinian Semites into a 
nation. With their extreme southern frontier at the 
very gates of Egypt, these hardy and warlike wanderers 
from Crete and the far north could not have paid 
tribute to the Pharaoh very long after the death of 
Ramses III (1167 B.C.). In the reign of Ramses IX 
(1142-1123 B.C.), or about that time, a body of Egyp- 
tian envoys were detained at Byblos by the local dynast 
for seventeen years, and, unable to return, they at last 



352 THE DECADENCE OF AXCIEXT EGYPT 

died there. The Syrian princes, among whom Ramses 
III had won his victories, were thus indifferent to the 
power of Egypt within twenty or twenty-five years of 
his death (BAR, IV, 558; 585; Jer. XL VII, 4;" Amos, 
IX, 7). 

354. A few years later, under Ramses XII, these 
same conditions in Syria are vividly portrayed in the 
report of an Egyptian envoy thither. In response to 
an oracle, 'Wenamon, the envoy in question, was dis- 
patched to Byblos, at the foot of Lebanon, to procure 
cedar for the sacred barge of Amon. Hrihor, the High 
Priest of Amon, was able to give him only a pitiful sum 
in gold and silver, and therefore sent with him an image 
of Amon, called "Ainon-of-the-Way," who was able to 
bestow "life and health," hoping thus to impress the 
prince of Byblos and compensate for the lack of liberal 
payment. Nothing more eloquently portrays the de- 
cadent condition of Egypt than the humiliating state 
of this unhappy envoy, dispatched without ships, with 
no credentials, with but a beggarly pittance to offer for 
the timber desired, and only the memory of Egypt's 
former greatness with which to impress the prince of 
Byblos. Stopping at Dor on the voyage out, Wenamon 
was robbed of the little money he had, and was unable 
to secure any satisfaction from the Thekel prince of that 
city. After waiting in despair for nine days, he de- 
parted for Byblos by way of Tyre, having on the way 
somehow succeeded in seizing from certain Thekel 
people a bag of silver as security for his loss at Dor. 
He finally arrived in safety at Byblos, where Zakar-Baal, 
the prince of the city, would not even receive him, but 
ordered him to leave. Such was the state of an Egyp- 
tian envoy in Phoenicia, within fifty or sixty years of 
the death of Ramses III. Finally, as the despairing 



THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE 353 

Wenamon was about to take passage back to Egypt, one 
of the noble youths in attendance upon Zakar-Baal was 
seized with a divine frenzy, and in prophetic ecstasy 
demanded that Wenamon be summoned, honourably 
treated and dismissed. This earliest known example 
of Old Testament prophecy in its earliest form thus 
secured for Wenamon an interview with Zakar-Baal. 
355. While the Phoenician prince quite readily ad- 
mits the debt of culture which his land owes Egypt as a 
source of civilization, he emphatically repudiates all 
political responsibility to the ruler of Egypt, whom he 
never calls Pharaoh, except in referring to a former 
sovereign. The situation is clear. A burst of military 
enthusiasm and a line of able rulers had enabled Egypt 
to assume for several centuries an imperial position, 
which her un warlike people were not by nature adapted 
to occupy; and their impotent descendants, no longer 
equal to their imperial role, were now appealing to the 
days of splendour with an almost pathetic futility. It 
is characteristic of the time that this appeal should as- 
sume a religious or even theological form, as Wenamon 
boldly proclaims Anion's dominion over Lebanon, 
where the Phoenician princes had, only two generations 
before, worshipped and paid tribute at the temple of 
Amon, erected by Ramses III. With oracles and an 
image of the god that conferred "life and health " the 
Egyptian envoy sought to make his bargain with the 
contemptuous Phoenician for timber which a Thutmose 
III or a Seti I had demanded with his legions behind 
him. The image of " Amon-of-the-Way " failed to 
impress Zakar-Baal, as the Pharaoh's armies had im- 
pressed his ancestors; and it was only when Wenamon's 
messenger to Egypt returned with a few vessels of silver 
and gold, some fine linen, papyrus rolls, ox-hides, coils 



354 THE DECADEXCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

of cordage, and the like, that the Phoenician ruler 
ordered his men to cut the desired logs; although he 
had sent some of the heavier timbers for the hull of the 
barge in advance, as an evidence of his good faith. 
Having escaped from a fleet of eleven Thekel ships 
which pursued him, the barque of the unhappy Wena- 
mon was driven by a tempest from the homeward course 
upon the coast of Cyprus, where the populace was about 
to slay him at the palace of Hatiba, the queen. Her 
he fortunately intercepted as she was passing from one 
palace to another. Among her following, Wenamon, 
by inquiry, found a Cyprian who spoke Egyptian, and 
by skillful intercession he gained her protection. At 
this point his report breaks off, and the conclusion is 
lost; but here again, in Cyprus, whose king, as practically 
his vassal, the Pharaoh had been wont to call to account 
for piracy in the old days of splendour, we find the 
representative of Egypt barely able to save his life only 
two generations after a great war-fleet of Ramses III 
had destroyed the powerful united navy of his northern 
enemies in these very waters. This unique and in- 
structive report of Wenamon (BAR, IV, 557 fj.), 
therefore, reveals to us the complete collapse of Egyptian 
prestige abroad and shows with what appalling swift- 
ness the dominant state in the Mediterranean basin had 
declined under the weak successors of Ramses III. 
When an Assyrian king, presumably Tiglath-pileser I, 
appeared in the West about 1100 B.C., a Pharaoh, who 
was probably Nesubenebded, feeling his exposed position 
in the Delta, deemed it wise to propitiate the Assyrian 
with a gift. Thus Egyptian influence in Syria had 
utterly vanished, while in Palestine a fiction of tradi- 
tional sovereignty, totally without practical political 
significance, was maintained at the Pharaoh's court, 



THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE 355 

In resumption of that sovereignty we shall see future 
kings making sporadic campaigns thither after the 
establishment of the Hebrew monarchy. 

356. Meanwhile there was but one possible issue for 
the conditions at Thebes. The messenger who pro- 
cured the timber for the sacred barge of Amon was no 
longer dispatched by the Pharaoh, but as we have seen, 
by the High Priest of Amon, Hrihor. He has now 
become head of the Pharaoh's military forces, with the 
title " commander in chief of the armies of the South and 
North." On the temples there are now two dedications : 
the usual one by the Pharaoh and another by the High 
Priest; while in the temple reliefs, in the place for 
thousands of years occupied by the Pharaoh, stands the 
High Priest Hrihor. Like the shadowy caliph, whom 
the Egyptian sultans brought from Bagdad to Cairo, 
and maintained for a time there, so the unfortunate 
Ramses XII had been brought from his Delta residence 
to Thebes, that the conventionalities of the old Pharaonic 
tradition might still be continued for a brief time. A 
letter written to his Nubian viceroy in his seventeenth 
year shows that he still retained some voice in Nubia; 
but he is soon deprived of his authority there also, and 
Hrihor appears as "viceroy of Kush." Already at the 
beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty we recall that Amon 
had gained possession of the Nubian gold-country; the 
High Priest has now gone a step further and seized the 
whole of the great province of the Upper Nile. The 
same inscription calls him also "overseer of the double 
granary," the most important fiscal officer in the state, 
next the chief treasurer himself. There is now nothing 
left in the way of authority and power for the High 
Priest to absorb; he is commander of all the armies, 
viceroy of Kush, holds the treasury in his hands, and 



356 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

executes the buildings of the gods. When the fiction 
of the last Ramessid's official existence had been main- 
tained for at least twenty-seven years the High Priest's 
supreme position seems to have been confirmed by an 
oracle of Khonsu, followed by the approval of Amon. 
The shadowy Pharaoh vanishes, and on the royal 
buildings the High Priest's name, preceded by the 
Pharaonic titles and enclosed in the royal cartouche at 
last appears alone (BAR, IV, 592-594; 602; 609; 611; 
595-600; 640; 614-626). 



XXV 

PRIESTS AND MERCENARIES: THE SUPREMACY OF 
THE LIBYANS 

357. The result of the development of Thebes into 
an independent sacerdotal principality was not only 
the downfall of the empire, but of course also the end 
of the unity of the kingdom. This disunion and division 
continued in more or less pronounced form from the 
rise of Hrihor and Nesubenebded, in the latter part of 
the eleventh century, for four hundred and fifty years 
or more. The complacent Hrihor maintained the 
fiction of a united "Two Lands," of which he called 
himself the lord, as if he really ruled them both. With 
amazing mendacity he filled his titulary with references 
to his universal power, and affirmed that the Syrian 
princes bowed down every day to his might. We recall, 
however, the adventures of the luckless Wenamon 
among them (pp. 352 jf.). The state which Hrihor 
maintained was a theocracy, pure and simple. As far 
back as the days of Thutmose III there are remarkable 
examples of Amon's intervention in the affairs of govern- 
ment. Thutmose III himself was crowned by an oracle 
of the gods. But this and other examples of the god's 
intervention occurred on extraordinary occasions. Un- 
der Hrihor's theocracy such oracles became part of 
the ordinary machinery of government. Whatever the 
High Priest wished legally to effect could be sanctioned 

357 



358 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

by special oracle of the god at any time, and by prear- 
rangement the cultus image before which the High 
Priest made known his desires invariably responded 
favourably by violent nodding of the head, or even by 
speech. All wills and property conveyances of members 
of the High Priest's family were oracles of Amon, and 
civil documents thus became divine decrees. Banished 
political exiles were recalled by oracle of the god, crim- 
inal cases were tried before him, and by his decision the 
convicted were put to death. Priestly jugglery, ruling 
if necessary in utter disregard of law and justice, thus 
enabled the High Priest to cloak with the divine sanction 
all that he wished to effect (BAR, IV, 620; 623; 795; 
670-674). 

358. Hrihor must have been an old man at his ac- 
cession (1090 B.C.). He did not long survive Ramses 
XII, and at his death his son, Payonekh, also advanced 
in years, was unable to maintain the independence of 
Thebes against Nesubenebded at Tanis, who extended 
his authority over the whole country for a brief time. 
He is, therefore, called the first king of the Twenty-first 
Dynasty by Manetho, who knows nothing of the inde- 
pendence of Thebes. Payonekh's son, Paynozem I, 
quickly succeeded him, and while he was ruling at 
Thebes in more or less independence, but without royal 
titles, Nesubenebded was followed at Tanis by Pesib- 
khenno I, probably his son. Paynozem I now achieved 
a master-stroke of diplomacy and gained in marriage the 
daughter of the Tanite, Pesibkhenno I. Thus on the 
death of the latter (1067 b. a), he obtained through his 
wife the Tanite crown and the sovereignty over a united 
Egypt, which he maintained for some forty years. 
Three of his sons became high priests at Thebes, but 
not without disturbance. These Tanite kings were not 



THE SUPREMACY OF THE LIBYANS 359 

great builders, although Pesibkhenno I raised a massive 
enclosure wall eighty feet thick around his temple at 
Tanis. As they show little initiative in other directions, 
the century and a half during which they maintained 
themselves was one of steady industrial and economic 
decline (BAR, IV, 627; 631; 633-635; 642; 650-658; 
661; PT, I, 19). 

359. The Tanites as a whole did nothing for the once 
great capital of the empire, and its decline was steady 
and rapid. They respected the memory of their royal 
ancestors and vied with the high priests at Thebes in 
protecting the bodies of the emperors, which they 
hurried from place to place to conceal them from the 
persistent tomb-robbers. Finally, under Pesibkhenno 
II, the last king of the Tanite Dynasty, they were 
hurriedly removed to their final hiding place, an old 
and probably unused tomb of Amenhotep I, near the 
temple of Der el-Bahri. Here the greatest kings of 
Egypt slept unmolested for nearly three thousand years, 
until about 1871 or 1872, when the Theban descendants 
of those same tomb-robbers whose prosecution under 
Ramses IX we can still read, discovered the place and 
the plundering of the royal bodies was begun again. 
In 1881, by methods not greatly differing from those 
employed under Ramses IX, the modern authorities 
forced the thieves to disclose the place. Thus nearly 
twenty-nine centuries after they had been sealed in their 
hiding place by the ancient scribes, and some three 
thousand five hundred years after the first interment of 
the earliest among them, the faces of Egypt's kings and 
emperors were disclosed to the modern world (BAR, IV, 
681; 627 ^.; 664-667; 691/.; 499-556). 

360. Abroad, the Twenty-first Dynasty was as feeble 
as its predecessors at the close of the Twentieth had 



360 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

been. They probably maintained Egyptian power in 
Nubia, but as for Asia, there was only the court fiction 
of a nominal suzerainty over Palestine in continuance 
of century-long tradition. During this period of 
Egypt's total eclipse the tribes of Israel were given 
opportunity to consolidate their national organization 
and under Saul and David they gradually gained the 
upper hand against the Philistines. Egypt's exact 
relation to these events it is as yet impossible to 
determine, as we have no contemporary monuments. 
The sea-peoples no longer appear upon the monuments, 
and from the west, the Delta was now the peaceful 
conquest of the Libyans, who accomplished by gradual 
immigration what they had failed to gain by hostile 
invasion. Libyan mercenaries still filled the ranks of 
the Egyptian army, and the commanders of the Mes- 
wesh in control of the fortresses and garrisons of the 
important Delta towns soon gained positions of power. 
A titleless Tehen-Libyan named Buyuwawa settled at 
Heracleopolis early in the Twenty-first Dynasty, and 
the family slowly rose till Sheshonk the seventh de- 
scendant of the line was a powerful mercenary prince 
at Heracleopolis, in control of a principality reaching 
probably as far as Memphis on the north and on the 
south as far as Siut. The other Libyan commanders 
in the Delta were evidently enjoying similar prosperity. 
Whether the Tanite line died out or its last representa- 
tive was too feeble to maintain himself we cannot now 
discern, but such was the power of Sheshonk at Hera- 
cleopolis that he now transferred his residence to Bubas- 
tis in the eastern Delta, where he seized the royal 
authority and proclaimed himself Pharaoh about 945 
B. c. His line was known to Manetho as the Twenty- 
second Dynasty. Thus, in a little over two centuries 



THE SUPREMACY OF THE LIBYANS 361 

after the death of Ramses III, who had smitten them 
so sorely, the Libyans gained the crown of Egypt with- 
out so much as drawing the sword. The forces which 
thus placed a soldier and a foreigner upon the venerable 
throne of the Pharaohs had developed hand in hand 
with those which had delivered the country to the priests; 
but the power of the priest had culminated a little more 
rapidly than that of the mercenary, although both were 
equally rooted in the imperial system of the Eighteenth 
Dynasty (BAR, IV, 785-793; 669-687; 785 ff.). 

361. Sheshonk immediately gave to the succession 
of his line a legitimacy which he could not himself 
possess, by marrying his son to the daughter of Pesib- 
khenno II, the last of the Tanite kings of the Twenty- 
first Dynasty. A difficult situation confronted the new 
ruler. It was essentially a feudal organization which 
was now effected by Sheshonk I, and the princes who 
owed him fealty were largely the turbulent Meshwesh 
chiefs like himself, who would naturally not forget his 
origin nor fail to see that a successful coup might ac- 
complish for any one of them what he had achieved for 
himself. It is evident that they ruled the Delta cities, 
rendering to the Pharaoh their quota of troops, as did 
the Mamlukes under the Sultans of Moslem Egypt. 
Upper Egypt was organized into two principalities; 
that of Heracleopolis embracing, as we have seen, 
northern Upper Egypt as far south as Siut, where the 
Theban principality began, which in its turn included 
all the country southward to the cataract and perhaps 
Nubia also. The country thus already fell into three 
divisions roughly corresponding to those of Ptolemaic 
and Roman times. Sheshonk by his origin controlled 
Heracleopolis, and he and his family after him main- 
tained close relations with the High Priests of Ptah at 



362 THE DECADENCE OF AXCIEXT EGYPT 

Memphis. He likewise attempted to hold the support 
of Thebes to his house by appointing his own son as 
High Priest of Anion there; but it still remained a 
distinct principality, capable of offering serious opposi- 
tion to the ruling family in the Delta. The city itself 
at least was not taxable by the Pharaoh, and was never 
visited by his fiscal officials. Under these circumstances 
an outbreak among the Libyan lords of the Delta or in 
the two powerful principalities of the South might be 
expected as soon as there was no longer over them a 
strong hand like that of Sheshonk I (BAR, IV, 738; 
745-747; 699 /.; 750). 

362. Under the energetic Sheshonk Egypt's foreign 
policy took on a more aggressive character, and her 
long merely formal claims upon Palestine were prac- 
tically pressed. Solomon was evidently an Egyptian 
vassal who possibly received in marriage a daughter of 
the Pharaoh and whose territory his Egyptian suzerain 
extended by the gift of the important city of Gezer, 
a Canaanite stronghold unsubdued by the Israelites, 
which the Pharaoh now captured, burned, and pre- 
sented to Solomon, who rebuilt it. The Pharaoh with 
whom Solomon had to deal cannot have been one of the 
degenerate kings at the close of the Twenty-first Dy- 
nasty, but an aggressive ruler who resumed Egypt's 
control in Palestine; and we know of no other king at 
this time who answers this description save Sheshonk I. 
After the division of the kingdom of the Hebrews under 
Solomon's son, Rehoboam, Sheshonk I, who had already 
harboured the fugitive Jeroboam, Rehoboam's northern 
enemy, thought it a good opportunity to make his 
claims in Palestine unquestionable, and in the fifth 
year of Rehoboam, probably about 926 b. c, he invaded 
Palestine. His campaign penetrated no further north 



THE SUPREMACY OF THE LIBYANS 363 

than the Sea of Galilee and extended eastward probably 
as far as Mahanaim on the east of Jordan. According 
to the Hebrew records, the Egyptians also entered 
Jerusalem and despoiled it of the wealth gathered there 
in Solomon's day; but it is clear that Sheshonk's 
campaign was directed impartially against the two 
kingdoms and did not affect Judah alone. Among 
other Palestinian towns which Sheshonk records as 
taken by him is a place called " Field of Abram," in 
which we find the earliest occurrence of the name of 
Israel's patriarchal hero. Sheshonk was able to return 
with great plunder to replenish the long depleted 
Pharaonic coffers. He placed a record of the tribute 
of Palestine and of Nubia, of which he had now gained 
control, beside those of the great conquerors of the 
Empire on the walls of the Karnak temple at Thebes. 
Thus for a time at least the glories of the Empire of the 
Nineteenth Dynasty were restored with tribute flowing 
into the treasury from a domain extending from northern 
Palestine to the upper Nile, and from the oases to the 
Red Sea (BAR, IV, 750; 709-722; 723-724 A; 782- 
784; I Kings IX, 15-17; Ibid, XIV, 25; AJSL, XXI, 
22-36). 

363. With his treasury thus replenished Sheshonk 
was able to revive the customary building enterprises 
of the Pharaohs which had been discontinued for over 
two hundred years. He beautified Bubastis, his Delta 
residence, and at Thebes undertook a vast court before 
the Karnak temple. By its south gate, now known as 
the "Bubastite Portal," the Pharaoh had executed a 
huge relief in the old style, depicting himself smiting 
the Asiatics before Amon, who leads and presents to 
Sheshonk one hundred and fifty-six Palestinian pris- 
oners, each symbolizing a town or locality captured by 



364 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

Sheshonk and bearing its name. A number of Biblical 
names may here be recognized (BAR, IV, 709-722). 

364. The Libyan rulers who succeeded Sheshonk 1 
were completely Egyptianized, though they retained 
their Libyan names. When Osorkon I, Sheshonk Fs 
son and heir, followed him, probably about 920 B. c, 
he succeeded by right of inheritance through his wife, 
the daughter of Pesibkhenno II. He inherited a pros- 
perous kingdom and enormous wealth, but Thebes, 
as in the Twenty-first Dynasty, caused great friction, 
and the problem was not solved by the appointment of 
the Pharaoh's son as High Priest there. The declining 
fortunes of the Twenty-second Dynasty can only be 
dimly discerned in the career of the Theban principality, 
which, however, clearly exhibits the turbulent and 
restless character of the feudal princes who now make 
up the state. We see the High Priest driven from 
Thebes in a civil war lasting many years, and these 
events are such as filled the reigns of the last three 
Bubastites, who continued to hold Thebes and ruled 
for a hundred years ; although their city of Bubastis has 
perished so completely that little or no record of their 
careers has survived. To revolt must be added hostili- 
ties between the two principalities of Thebes and 
Heracleopolis, of which there are plain traces, and feuds 
among the mercenary lords of the Delta. The situation 
will have closely resembled that under the Mamlukes, 
when the people, groaning under every oppression and 
especially exorbitant taxation, often successively taxed 
by two different lords, rose in revolt after revolt, only 
to be put down by the mercenaries with slaughter and 
rapine. Under such circumstances the Pharaoh's 
influence in Palestine must have totally vanished; but, 
alarmed at the growing power of Nineveh in Syria, one 



THE SUPREMACY OF THE LIBYANS 365 

of the Bubastites, probably Takelot II, contributed a 
quota of a thousand men to the western coalition against 
the Assyrians, which was defeated by Shalmaneser II 
at Qarqar on the Orontes in 854 b. c. (BAR, IV, 729- 
792). 

365. It is impossible to determine with certainty the 
family connection of the last three Bubastites. They 
held Memphis and Thebes, and their names occasionally 
appear here and there on minor monuments. It is 
evident that during their rule the local lords and 
dynasts of the Delta were gradually gaining their 
independence, and probably many of them had thrown 
off their allegiance to the Bubastite house long before 
the death of Sheshonk IV (745 B.C.), with whom the 
Twenty-second Dynasty certainly reached its end. 

366. One of these Delta lords, named Pedibast, 
gained the dominant position among his rivals at the 
death of Sheshonk IV, and founded a new house known 
to Manetho as the Twenty-third Dynasty. Manetho 
places this dynasty at Tanis, but Pedibast was of Buba- 
stite origin, like the family which he unseated. A late 
Demotic papyrus in Vienna contains a folk-tale of 
long feudal strife, which significantly reveals the un- 
settled conditions of the time among the turbulent 
dynasts, whom Pedibast was unable to control. Under 
his successor, Osorkon III, conditions were no better, 
until there was at last an independent lord or petty king 
in every city of the Delta and up the river as far as 
Hermopolis. We are acquainted with the names of 
eighteen of these dynasts, whose struggles among them- 
selves now led to the total dissolution of the Egyptian 
state. Its power was completely paralyzed and the 
political sagacity of such statesmen as the Hebrew 
prophets was quite sufficient to perceive how utterly 



366 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

futile was the policy of the Egyptian party in Israel, 
which would have depended upon the support of Egypt 
against the oppression of Assyria. When the troops 
of Tiglath-pileser III devastated the West down to the 
frontier of Egypt in 734-732 B.C., the kinglets of the 
Delta were too involved in their own complicated and 
petty wars to render the wretched Hebrews any assist- 
ance; nor did they foresee that the day must soon come 
when the great power on the Tigris would cross the 
desert that separated Egypt from Palestine and for a 
brief time absorb the ancient kingdom of the Nile. 
But before this inevitable catastrophe should occur, 
another foreign power was to possess the throne of the 
Pharaohs (BAR, IV, 794; 878; 796 ff.; 830, No. 2; 
WZKM, XVII; MSPER, VI, 19 ff.). 



XXVI 

THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY AND THE TRIUMPH 
OF ASSYRIA. 

367. Lower Nubia had now been dominated by the 
Egyptians for over eighteen hundred years, while the 
country above the second cataract to the region of the 
fourth cataract had for the most part been under 
Egyptian control for something like a thousand years. 
The fertile and productive lands below the fourth 
cataract, the rich gold mines in the mountains east of 
Lower Nubia, which compensated in some measure for 
its agricultural poverty, and the active trade from the 
Sudan which was constantly passing through the 
country, made it a land of resources and possibilities, 
which the Egyptianized Nubians, slowly awakening to 
their birthright, were now beginning to realize. 

368. Shehonk I had still held Nubia, and it is probable 
that the cataract country was still a dependency of 
Egypt until the middle of the Twenty-second Dynasty, 
about 850 b. c. It will be recalled that Nubia had for 
five centuries been very closely connected with Thebes 
and the temple of Anion. The control of the Theban 
High Priest had finally strengthened into full possession 
of Nubia for two hundred and fifty years. It must have 
been the Theban priesthood, perhaps as political exiles, 
who founded the Amonite theocracy which now, as a 
fully developed Nubian kingdom emerges upon our 

367 



368 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

view, with its seat of government at Napata, just below 
the fourth cataract. Napata had been an Egyptian 
frontier station from the days of Amenhotep II, seven 
hundred years earlier. It was, moreover, the remotest 
point in Egyptian Nubia, and hence safest from attack 
from the North (BAR, IV, 796; 614 /.; Ill, 640). 

369. The state which arose here was, in accordance 
with our explanation of its origin, a reproduction of the 
Amonite theocracy at Thebes. The state god was 
Amon, and he continually intervened directly in the 
affairs of government by specific oracles. The king 
bore all the Pharaonic titles, calling himself Lord of the 
Two Lands as if he governed all Egypt. He built 
temples of Egyptian architecture, decorated with 
Egyptian reliefs and bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions 
and dedications of the traditional Egyptian form. 

370. By 721 b. c. we suddenly find the Nubian king 
Piankhi, then over twenty years upon the throne, in 
possession of Upper Egypt as far north as Heracleopolis, 
just south of the Fayum, with Nubian garrisons in the 
more important towns. At this time the Twenty-third 
Dynasty, represented by Osorkon III at Bubastis, no 
longer actually ruling more than the district of Bubastis 
and surrounded by rivals in every important town of the 
Delta, was confronted by an aggressive and powerful 
opponent in Tefnakhte, the dynast of Sais, in the 
western Delta. This Saite had subdued all his neigh- 
bours in the western Delta, and beginning the absorp- 
tion of upper Egypt had already captured Hermopolis. 
Piankhi sent an army against him, which drove him 
back into the Delta and began the siege of Hermopolis. 
Several months later Piankhi himself reached Hermop- 
olis with reinforcements and vigorously pushed the 
siege, soon forcing the surrender of the place. 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 369 

371. The advance to the Delta, sailing down the 
Bahr Yusuf, was then begun, and the chief towns of the 
west side surrendered one after another on seeing: 
Piankhi's force. The Nubian king offered sacrifice 
to the gods in all the cities which he passed, and took 
possession of all the available property for his own 
treasury and the estate of Amon. On reaching Mem- 
phis it was found to have been very strongly fortified 
by Tefnakhte, who exhorted the garrison to rely on their 
strong walls, their plentiful supplies and the high water, 
which protected the east side from attack, while he rode 
away northward for reinforcements. Having landed 
on the north of the city, Piankhi, surprised at the 
strength of the place, devised a shrewd plan of assault, 
which speaks highly for his skill as a strategist. The 
high walls on the west of the city had been recently 
raised still higher, and it was evident that the east side, 
protected by waters perhaps artificially raised, was 
being neglected. Here was the harbour, where the 
ships now floated so high that their bow ropes were 
fastened among the houses of the city. Piankhi sent 
his fleet against the harbour and quickly captured all 
the shipping. Then, taking command in person, he 
rapidly ranged the captured craft together with his own 
fleet along the eastern walls, thus furnishing footing 
for his assaulting lines, which he immediately sent over 
the ramparts and captured the city before its eastern 
defenses could be strengthened against him. 

372. The entire region of Memphis then submitted, 
whereupon the Delta dynasts also appeared in numbers 
with gifts for Piankhi and signified their submission. 
Piankhi now crossed the river and followed the old 
sacred road to Heliopolis, where he camped by the 
harbour. His annals narrate at length how he entered 



370 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

the holy of holies of the sun-god here, that he might be 
recognized as his son and heir to the throne of Egypt, 
according to custom since the remote days of the Fifth 
Dynasty. Here king Osorkon III of the Twenty-third 
Dynasty at Bubastis, now but a petty dynast like the 
rest, \isited Piankhi and recognized the Nubian's 
suzerainty. Having then moved his camp to a point 
just east of Athribis, Piankhi there received the sub- 
mission of the principal Delta lords, fifteen in number. 

373. Meantime the desperate Tefnakhte, having been 
driven from his last fortress, had taken refuge on one of 
the remote islands in the western mouths of the Nile. 
Many miles of vast Delta morass and a network of 
irrigation canals separated Piankhi from the fugitive. 
It would have been a hazardous undertaking to dispatch 
an army into such a region. When, therefore, Tef- 
nakhte sent gifts and an humble message of submission 
requesting that Piankhi send to him a messenger with 
whom he might go to a neighbouring temple and take 
the oath of allegiance to his Nubian suzerain, Piankhi 
was very glad to accept the proposal. This done, a 
Nubian Pharaoh had obtained complete recognition, 
had supplanted the Libyans and was lord of all Egypt. 

374. When his Delta vassals had paid Piankhi a last 
visit he loaded his ships with the wealth of the North and 
sailed away for his southern capital amid the acclama- 
tions of the people. Arrived at Napata, Piankhi 
erected in the temple of Amon a magnificent granite 
stela, inscribed on all four sides, recording in detail the 
entire campaign. It is the clearest and most rational 
account of a military expedition which has survived 
from ancient Egypt. It is this document of course 
which has enabled us to follow Piankhi in his conquest 
of the North (BAR, IV, 796-883). 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 371 

375. Tefnakhte, while he had nominally submitted 
io Piankhi, only awaited the withdrawal of the Ethiopian 
to resume his designs. He eventually succeeded in 
establishing a kingdom of Lower Egypt, assumed the 
Pharaonic titles and ruled at least eight years over a 
feudal state like that of the Twenty-second Dynasty. 
His reign is parallel with the last years of the Twenty- 
third Dynasty, which seems to have struggled on at 
Bubastis as vassal princes under him. In Upper Egypt, 
Piankhi controlled Thebes long enough to do some 
slight building in the temple of Mut. In order to gain 
control of the fortune of Amon with an appearance of 
legitimacy, Piankhi had caused his sister-wife, Amenar- 
dis, to be adopted by Shepnupet, the daughter of 
Osorkon III, who was sacerdotal princess of Thebes. 
The device was probably not new. But as Piankhi 
withdrew, the decadent Twenty-third Dynasty put forth 
its last expiring effort and established an ephemeral 
authority in Thebes.' Piankhi's invasion of Egypt and 
entire reign there seem therefore to have fallen within 
the reign of Osorkon III. But the rising power of Sais 
soon overwhelmed the failing Bubastites, and Bocchoris, 
son of Tefnakhte of Sais, gained the throne of Lower 
Egypt probably about 718 B.C., to be later known as 
the founder, and in so far as we know, the sole king of 
the Twenty-fourth Dynasty. The monuments of his 
brief reign have perished. A doubtless reliable tradi- 
tion of Greek times makes him a wise lawgiver, and a 
remarkable Demotic papyrus dated, in the thirty-fourth 
year of the Roman Emperor Augustus, narrates the 
prophecies of a lamb uttered in the sixth year of Boc- 
choris, in which the imminent invasion of Egypt and its 
conquest by the Assyrians are foretold, seemingly with 
the assurance that the misfortunes of the unhappy 



372 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

country should continue nine hundred years. It is 
the last example of that school of prophetic literature of 
which Ipuwer of the Middle Kingdom (p. 168) was 
the earliest representative known to us. Manetho 
characteristically narrates this marvellous tale as an 
important occurrence of Bocchoris's reign (BAR, IV, 
811; 940; KFB). 

376. Egypt had now been under the divided authority 
of numerous local dynasts for probably over a century 
and a half. With its vast works of irrigation slowly 
going to ruin, its roads unprotected, intercourse between 
cities unsafe and the larger communities suffering from 
constant turmoil and agitation, the productive capacity 
of the country was steadily waning, while foreign com- 
merce disappeared. The hopeless state of the country 
was clearly understood by the sagacious Isaiah, who 
declared to his people: "Behold the Lord rideth upon a 
swift cloud and cometh unto Egypt; and the idols of 
Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of 
Egypt shall melt in the midst of it. And I will stir up 
the Egyptians against the Egyptians; and they shall 
fight every one against his brother, and every one against 
his neighbour; city against city and kingdom against 
kingdom. . . . And I will give over the Egyptians into 
the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule 
over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts. . . . The 
princes of Zoan [Tanis] are utterly foolish; the counsel 
of the wisest counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish. 
. . . The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes 
of Noph [Napata?] are deceived; they have caused 
Egypt to go astray that are the corner stone of her 
tribes. The Lord hath mingled a spirit of perverseness 
in the midst of her; they have caused Egypt to go astray 
in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggering in 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 373 

his vomit. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work 
which head or tail, palm-branch or rush, may do" 
(Is. XIX). No truer picture could possibly be por- 
trayed. 

377. Meantime profound political changes, fraught 
with the greatest danger to Egypt, were taking place in 
Asia. Twice already had the westward march of 
Assyria disquieted the Pharaoh (pp. 354, 366,). Rousing 
Assyria from a period of temporary decadence, Tiglath- 
pileser III had brought her full power to bear upon the 
West, and in 734 to 732 b. c. had ravaged Syria-Pales- 
tine to the very borders of Egypt. The Aramaean 
kingdom of Damascus fell and the whole west was 
organized as dependencies of Assyria. In the short 
reign of Shalmaneser IV, who followed Tiglath-pileser 
III, Israel with others was encouraged to revolt by 
Sewe or So, probably an otherwise unknown Delta 
dynast. Before the Assyrian invasion which resulted, 
Samaria held out for some years; but under Shal- 
maneser IV's great successor, Sargon II, it fell in 722 
b. c. The chief families of Israel were deported and 
the nation, as such, was annihiliated. Unable to oppose 
the formidable armies of Assyria, the petty kinglets of 
Egypt, constantly fomented discontent and revolt among 
the Syro-Palestinian states in order if possible to create 
a fringe of buffer states between them and the Assyrian. 
In 720 b. c. Sargon again appeared in the west to sup- 
press a revolt in which Egypt doubtless had a hand. 
Completely victorious in the north, he marched south- 
ward to Raphia, where he totally defeated the allies 
of the south, among whom Egypt had a levy of troops 
under a commander named Sib'i. The Assyrian hosts 
had now twice swept down to the very borders of 
Egypt, and the dynasts must by this time have been fully 



374 THE DECADENCE OF AXCIEXT EGYPT 

aware of their clanger. In 715 B. c. Sargon's records 
report the reception of gifts from Pir'u (Pharaoh) of 
Eerrpt, who will probablv have been Bocchoris (II 
Kings, XVII, 4; WUAG, 93 /.). 

378. Such was the threatening situation of Egypt 
when, probably about 711 B.C., after an interval of 
some ten years since the retirement of Piankhi, the 
Nubian kings again appeared in the North. Piankhi 
had now been succeeded by his brother, Shabaka, with 
whom the uninterrupted series of pure Ethiopian royal 
names begins. We possess no native records of his 
conquest of the country, but Manetho states that he 
burned Bocchoris alive. Lower Egypt was completely 
subdued, Ethiopian supremacy acknowledged and 
Shabaka entrenched himself so firmly that he became 
the founder of the Twenty-fifth or Ethiopian Dynasty, 
as reported by Manetho. Appreciating the serious 
danger of Assyria's presence on his very borders, 
Shabaka immediately sent his agents among the Syro- 
Palestinian states to excite them to revolt. In Philistia, 
Judah, Moab and Edom he promised the vassals of 
Assyria support in rebellion against their Ninevite 
suzerain. Remembering the ancient supremacy of 
Egypt, failing to understand the state of decadent 
impotence into which she had fallen, and anxious to 
shake off the oppressive Assyrian yoke, they lent a 
ready ear to the emissaries of Shabaka. Only in 
Judah did the prophet-statesman, Isaiah, foresee the 
futility of depending upon Egypt, and the final catas- 
trophe which should overtake her at the hands of 
Assyria. The vigilant Assyrian, however, hearing of 
the projected alliance, acted so quickly that the con- 
spirators were glad to drop their designs and protest 
fidelity. In spite of difficulties in Babylon and rebel- 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 375 

lions in the north, the able and aggressive Sargon 
pushed the consolidation of his power with brilliant 
success and left to his son Sennacherib in 705 B.C. 
the first stable and firmly compacted empire ever 
founded by a Semitic power (Is., XX; WUAG; BAR, 
IV, 920). 

379. Sennacherib was embarrassed in his earlier 
years with the usual complications in Babylon. Mar- 
dukbaliddin (Merodach-baladan), an able and active 
claimant of the Babylonian throne, who had already 
caused Sennacherib's father much trouble, now sent his 
emissaries to stir up defection and create a diversion 
in his favour in the west. As a result Luli, the energetic 
king of Tyre, Hezekiah of Judah, the dynasts of Edom, 
Moab and Ammon, with the chiefs of their Beduin 
neighbours, in fact, all the southern half of the Assyrian 
conquests in the west besides Egypt were finally organ- 
ized in a great alliance against Nineveh. Before the 
allies could act in concert, Sennacherib suddenly ap- 
peared in the west, marched down the Phoenician coast, 
capturing all its strongholds save Tyre; and pressed on 
southward to the revolting Philistine cities. Here, 
having punished Askalon, he advanced to Altaqu, 
where he came upon the motley army gathered by the 
tardy Shabaka among his northern vassals, whom 
Sennacherib calls "the Kings of Mucri" (Egypt). 
We know nothing of the strength of this force, although 
Sennacherib claims that they were "without number ;" 
but it is safe to conclude that it was not a formidable 
army. A loose aggregation of levies from the domains 
of the local Delta princes was little fitted to meet the 
compact and finely organized armies which the Assyrian 
kings had gradually developed, till they had become the 
dread and terror of the west. Although small Egyptian 



376 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

contingents had before served as auxiliaries against the 
Assyrians, the armies of the two empires on the Nile 
and the Tigris had never before faced each other. 
Sennacherib led his own power in person while the 
Egyptian army was entrusted by Shabaka to his nephew, 
a son ot Piankhi, named Taharka, who some thirteen 
or fourteen years afterward became king of Ethiopia, a 
fact which led the Hebrew annalist to give him that title 
already at the time of this campaign. There was but 
one possible issue for the battle; Sennacherib disposed 
of Taharka's army without difficulty, having meanwhile 
beleaguered Jerusalem and devastated Judah far and 
wide. He had effectually stamped out the disaffection 
in the west and completely discomfited the allies, but 
before he could take Jerusalem the plague-infected 
winds from the malarial shores east of the Delta had 
scattered death among his troops. This overwhelming 
catastrophe, together with disquieting news from Baby- 
lon, forced him hastily to retire to Xineveh, thus bring- 
ing to Jerusalem the deliverance promised by Isaiah, an 
event in which pious tradition afterward saw the de- 
stroying angel of the Ix)rd. This deliverance was per- 
haps as fortunate for Egypt as for Jerusalem. For the 
third time the invincible Assyrian army had stood on 
the very threshold of Egypt, and still the decrepit nation 
on the Nile for a little time was spared the inevitable 
humiliation which was now so near. The Syro- 
Palestinian princes, however, were so thoroughly 
cowed that Egypt was thenceforth unable to seduce 
them to rebellion. Like the Hebrews, they at last 
recognized the truth, as mockinfrh* stated by the officers 
of Sennacherib to the unhappy ambassadors of Jeru- 
salem: "Now behold, thou trustest upon the staff of 
this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 377 

lean it will go into his hand and pierce it; so is Pharaoh 
king of Egypt unto all that trust on him" (Note VIII; 
BAR, IV, 892; 2 Kings, XIX, 9; XVIII, 21). 

380. Shabaka apparently ruled his vassal Egyptian 
states for the remainder of his reign in peace. The 
fragments of a clay tablet bearing the seal of Shabaka 
and a king of Assyria, found at Kuyunjik, may indicate 
some agreement between the two nations. At Thebes 
Shabaka reinstated Amenardis, his sister, who must have 
been temporarily expelled by Osorkon III. Together 
with her, he built a chapel at Karnak, and his building 
operations necessitated an expedition to the distant 
quarries of Hammamat. We also find records of his 
temple restorations at Thebes, and it is evident that he 
governed Egypt at least in his relations with the temples, 
precisely as a native Pharaoh would have done. It 
was probably Shabaka who now broke the power of the 
High Priest of Amon, of whose impotence we shall see 
further evidence as we proceed. 

381. About 700 b. c, Shabaka was succeeded by 
Shabataka, another Ethiopian, whose connection with 
the reigning Ethiopian or Nubian family is a little 
uncertain, although Manetho, who calls him Sebichos, 
makes him a son of Shabaka. As the western vassals 
remained quiet and Sennacherib was now absorbed in 
his operations at the other extremity of his empire, 
Shabataka was unmolested by the Assyrian. His name 
is rare in Egypt, but it is evident from the conditions 
which survived him that he was entirely unable to 
exterminate the local dynasts and consolidate the power 
of Egypt for the supreme struggle which was before 
her. It was indeed now patent that the Ethiopians 
were quite unfitted for the imperial task before them. 
The southern strain with which their blood was tinct- 



378 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

ured began to appear as the reign of Shabataka drew 
to a close about 688 b. c. 

382. It is at this juncture that we can trace the rising 
fortunes of a son of Piankhi, prince Taharka, whose 
features, as preserved in contemporary sculptures, show 
unmistakable negroid characteristics. He had been 
entrusted with the command of the army in the cam- 
paign against Sennacherib. While we know nothing of 
the circumstances which brought about his advent to 
the throne, Manetho states, that leading an army from 
Ethiopia he slew Sebichos, who must be Shabataka, and 
seized the crown. The contemporary monuments, 
without intimation of these events, abruptly picture 
him in Tanis as king, summoning his mother, whom he 
has not seen for many years, from Xapata to Tanis, that 
she may assume her proper station as queen-mother 
there. In view of this fact and the trouble to be antici- 
pated from Assyria, it is not improbable that the Ethi- 
opians at this time maintained Tanis as their Egyptian 
residence (BAR, IV, 892-896). 

383. For some thirteen years Taharka ruled his 
kingdom without molestation from Asia. The west had 
for twenty years seen nothing of Sennacherib, who was 
now assassinated by his sons, in 681 B. c. As soon as 
his son, Esarhaddon, could arrange the affairs of the 
great empire to which he had succeeded, he determined 
to resort to the only possible remedy for the constant 
interference of Egypt with the authority of Assyria in 
Palestine, viz., the conquest of the Nile country and 
humiliation of the Pharaoh. With farseeing thorough- 
ness, he laid his plans for the execution of this purpose, 
and his army was knocking at the frontier fortresses of 
the eastern Delta in 674 b. c. But Taharka, who was a 
man of far greater ability than his two Ethiopian pred- 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 379 

ecessors, must have made a supreme effort to meet the 
crisis. The outcome of the battle (673 b. c.) was un- 
favourable for the Assyrian if indeed, as the documents 
perhaps indicate, he did not suffer positive defeat. 
But Esarhaddon nevertheless quietly continued his 
preparations for the conquest of Egypt. Baal, king of 
Tyre, perhaps encouraged by the undecisive result of 
the first Assyrian invasion, then rebelled, making 
common cause with Taharka. In 670 b. c. Esarhaddon 
was again in the West at the head of his forces. Having 
invested Tyre, he defeated and scattered the Egyptian 
army. As the Ethiopian fell back upon Memphis, 
Esarhaddon pressed him closely, and besieged and 
captured the city, which fell a rich prey to the cruel and 
rapacious Ninevite army. Fleeing southward Taharka 
abandoned Lower Egypt, which was immediately 
organized by Esarhaddon into dependencies of Assyria. 
He records the names of twenty lords of the Delta, 
formerly Ethiopian vassals, who now took the oath of 
fealty to him. Among these names, written in cunei- 
form, a number may be recognized as those of the same 
men with eighteen of whom Piankhi had to deal in the 
same region. Necho, doubtless a descendant of Tef- 
nakhte, occupies the most prominent place among them 
as prince of Sais and Memphis. The list also includes 
a prince of Thebes, but Esarhaddon certainly possessed 
no more than a merely nominal authority in Upper 
Egypt at this time. As he returned to Nineveh, north- 
ward along the coast road, he hewed in the rocks at the 
Dog River, beside the triumphant stelae of Ramses 
II (p. 303), a record of his great achievement; while in 
Samal (Senjirli), in north Syria, he erected a similar 
monument representing himself of heroic stature, leading 
two captives, of whom one is probably Baal of Tyre, 



380 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

and the other, as his negroid features indicate, is the 
unfortunate Taharka (WUAG, 97 ff.). 

384. After the domination of Libyan and Nubian in 
turn, Egypt was now a prey to a third foreign conqueror, 
who, however, differed essentially from the others, in 
that he resided abroad, and evinced not the slightest 
sympathy with Egyptian institutions or customs. The 
result was that the Delta kinglets, who had sworn 
allegiance to the Ninevite, immediately plotted with 
Taharka for the resumption of his rule in Lower Egypt, 
which he thereupon assumed without much delay on the 
withdrawal of the Assyrian army. Esarhaddon was 
thus forced to begin his work over again; but in 668 b. c, 
while on the march to resume operations in Egypt, he 
died. With but slight delay the campaign was con- 
tinued by his son, Ashurbanipal, who placed one of his 
commanders in charge of the expedition. Between 
Memphis and the frontier of the eastern Delta, Taharka 
was again routed. He fled to Thebes, this time pur- 
sued by the Assyrians who made the forty days' march 
thither, determined to expel him from Egypt. Whether 
the enemy actually captured Thebes at this time is some- 
what doubtful. In any case, Ashurbanipal was still 
unable to extend his authority to Upper Egypt. He had 
hardly restored his supremacy in the Delta when his 
vassals there again began communicating with Taharka, 
purposing his restoration as before. But their corre- 
spondence with Taharka was discovered by the Assyrian 
officials in Egypt, and they were sent to Nineveh in 
chains. There the wily Necho, whom Esarhaddon had 
made king of Sais, was able to win the confidence of 
Ashurbanipal, who pardoned him, loaded him with 
honours and restored him to his kingdom in Sais, while 
his son was appointed to rule Athribis. At the same 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 381 

time Ashurbanipal accompanied him with Assyrian 
officials, intended of course to be a check upon his con- 
duct. Taharka was now unable to gain any further 
foothold among the Assyrian vassals in the Delta. He 
probably held Thebes, where he controlled the fortune 
of Amon by causing his sister, Shepnupet, to be adopted 
by Amenardis the "Divine Votress," or sacerdotal 
princess of Thebes, who had been appointed by Pi- 
ankhi in the same way. At Napata Taharka either 
built or enlarged two considerable temples, and the 
Ethiopian capital evidently became a worthy royal 
residence in his time (BAR, IV, 901-916; 940; 
897#.). 

385. Taharka survived but a few months his ap- 
pointment of Tanutamon, a son of Shabaka as coregent, 
who then succeeded to the crown in 663 b. c. En- 
couraged by a favourable dream, Tanutamon undertook 
the recovery of Lower Egypt, defeated the Assyrian 
commanders, retook Memphis, and demanded the. 
submission of the Delta dynasts. He had hardly! 
settled in Memphis, when AshurbanipaFs army ap- 
peared and drove the Ethiopian for the last time from 
Lower Egypt. The Assyrians pursued him to Thebes, 
and as he ingloriously withdrew southward, they sacked 
and plundered the magnificent capital of Egypt's age 
of splendour. The story of the ruin of Thebes spread 
to all the peoples around, and when the prophet Nahum 
was denouncing the coming destruction of Nineveh, 
fifty years later, the desolation of Thebes was still fresh 
in his mind. From this time the fortunes of the vener- 
able city steadily declined and its splendours, such as no 
city of the early orient had ever displayed, gradually 
faded. It entered upon the long centuries of lingering 
decay which have left it at the present day still the 



382 THE DECADENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

mightiest ruin surviving from the ancient world (BAR, 
IV, 919-934; Nahum, III, 8-10; WUAG). 

386. As the Assyrians withdrew from Thebes, 
Tanutamon again entered the desolated city, where he 
maintained himself for at least six years more (till 655 
B. c). By 654 b. c. he had disappeared from Thebes, 
whether by death or retirement, and his disappearance 
was the termination of Ethiopian supremacy in Egypt 
(see Note IX). At a time when Assyria was dominating 
the East, without a worthy rival elsewhere to stay her 
hand, it was to be expected that the historic people of 
the Nile should confront her and dispute her progress 
on even terms. To this great task the Ethiopians were 
appointed; but in fact Assyria was never dealing with 
a first-class power in her conquest of Egypt. The 
Nubians were not the men to reorganize a long deca- 
dent and disorganized nation, and the unhappy Nile- 
dwellers, in hopeless impotence, looked in vain for a 
strong ruler, throughout the supremacy of the inglorious 
Ethiopians. 

387. Withdrawing to Napata, the Ethiopians never 
made another attempt to subdue the kingdom of the 
lower river, but gave their attention to the development 
of Nubia. As the Egyptians resident in the country 
died out and were not replaced by others, the Egyptian 
gloss which the people had received began rapidly to 
disappear, and the land relapsed into a semi-barbaric 
condition. The theocratic character of the government 
became more and more pronounced until the king was 
but a puppet in the hands of the priests, at whose behest 
he was obliged even to take his own life and make way 
for another weakling whom the priests might choose. 
The nation soon turned its face southward. By 560 
B. c. the Nubian kings were occupying their new capital, 



THE ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY 383 

far above the fifth cataract, known to the Greeks as 
Meroe. Apart from other considerations, the wisdom 
of thus placing the difficult cataract region between the 
capital and invaders from the north was shown by the 
discomfiture of Cambyses' expedition against Nubia at 
the hands of its king Nastesen in 525 b. c. As the 
nation shifted southward it was completely withdrawn 
from contact with the northern world; and Ethiopia, 
gradually lost behind a mist of legend, became the won- 
derland celebrated in Greek story as the source of 
civilization. The Egyptian language and hieroglyphics, 
which the kings had hitherto used for their records, now 
slowly disappeared, and by the beginning of our era the 
native language was finally written in a script which as 
yet is undeciphered. When a century or two after the 
Roman conquests, the Ethiopian kingdom slowly col- 
lapsed and fell to pieces, its northern districts were 
absorbed by wild hordes of the Blemmyes who pushed 
in from the east; while in the south it was succeeded by 
the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, which rose at the 
sources of the Blue Nile in the fourth century A. D. and 
finally acquired the name of its ancient Ethiopian 
predecessor. 



PART VIII 
THE RESTORATION AND THE END 



XXVII 

THE RESTORATION 

388. On the death of Necho of Sais, probably at the 
hands of Tanutamon, Psamtik his son had fled to the 
Assyrians. Having thus shown his fidelity, he was 
installed over his father's kingdom of Sais and Mem- 
phis by Ashurbanipal. The Delta continued under the 
mercenary lords in control there with some interruptions 
since the Twenty-first Dynasty, while in Upper Egypt, 
as we have seen, Tanutamon at first maintained himself 
at Thebes. Outwardly there was little indication of 
the brilliant day which was now dawning upon the 
long afflicted nation. Psamtik, scion of a line of men 
of marked power and political sagacity, soon shook off 
the restraint and supervision of the resident Assyrian 
officials. He can hardly have been unaware that 
Ashurbanipal was ere long to be engaged in a deadly 
struggle with his brother, the king of Babylon, involving 
dangerous complications with Elam. As this war came 
on (652 b. c.) an attempt of the Arabian tribes to send 
aid to Babylon demanded an Assyrian expedition 
thither; while disturbances among the peoples on the 
northern borders of the Ninevite empire and the 
necessity of meeting the Cimmerians in Cilicia required 
liberal assignments of Ashurbanipal's available military 
forces to these regions. It was over twelve years before 
these difficulties were all adjusted, and when in 640 b. c. 

387 



388 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

peace at last settled upon the Assyrian empire, Psani- 
tik's movement had gone too far and AshurbanipaJ 
evidently did not care to risk opposing it. 

389. With Psamtik, the Greek traditions regarding 
Egypt begin to be fairly trustworthy, if the folk-tales 
which the Greeks so readily credited be properly sifted. 
In these, as transmitted by Herodotus, we can follow 
the rise of Psamtik, as he employs the Ionian and 
Carian mercenaries dispatched from Asia Minor by 
Gyges, king of Lydia, who at this juncture, after court- 
ing the Assyrians to save himself from the Cimmerian 
hordes, is anxious to combine with Egypt in common 
opposition to Xinevite aggression. The Assyrian annals 
state that he sent assistance to Egypt. It is not to be 
doubted that Psamtik took advantage of these favouring 
circumstances in the creation of which he had of course 
had a hand, and by such means gained permanent 
ascendency over the local dynasts. 

390. His progress was rapid. By 654 B. c, while 
Ashurbanipal was attacking Babylon, he had gained 
Thebes, where Tanutamon had by that time either 
died or retired to Xapata (See Note IX). In order to 
obtain legitimate control of the fortune of Anion, now 
of course much depleted, Psamtik decreed that his 
daughter Xitocris should be adopted by the Divine 
Votress at Thebes, Shepnupet, the sister of the deceased 
Taharka. The collapse of the high priesthood of 
Anion was now so complete that within sixty years the 
once powerful office was actually held by these sacerdotal 
princesses. The High Priest of Anion was a woman! 
In the suppression of the mercenary lords and local 
dynasts by Psamtik, the nation was at last rescued from 
the unstable rule of a body of feudal lords and their 
turbulent military adherents, under whose irresponsible 



THE RESTORATION 389 

tyranny it had suffered, with but brief respites, for some 
four hundred years. This remarkable achievement of 
Psamtik I places him among the ablest rulers who ever 
sat on the throne of the Pharaohs. He was not, however, 
able completely to exterminate the dynasts, as is com- 
monly stated. Some of them would of course espouse 
his cause and thus gain immunity, like Mentemhet, 
prince of Thebes, or Prince Hor of Heracleopolis 
(BAR, IV, 937; 949; 935-958; 988 D; 967-973; 902 
end). 

391. A not less troublesome problem was the organ- 
ization of the military class. The now completely 
Egyptianized Libyans who had lived in Egypt for 
centuries had finally developed into a warrior-class of 
no great effectiveness, whose numbers at this time ab- 
surdly exaggerated by Herodotus, we cannot determine. 
Besides that of the feudal lords, it was also the opposi- 
tion of this class which Psamtik had been obliged to 
face; and he had no recourse but to pit against them his 
northern mercenaries, the Greeks and Carians. Thus 
Egypt, having suffered the inevitable fate of a military 
kingdom in the ancient world, was passing into the 
control of one foreign warrior-class after another. The 
army which Psamtik I now put together was made up of 
Greeks, Carians and Syrians on the one hand, and on 
the other of Libyans and their Egyptianized kindred. 
The Ionians and Carians were stationed on the north- 
eastern frontier near Daphnse, with a branch of the 
Nile running through their camp; while the border of 
the western Delta was secured by a body of the warrior- 
class in a stronghold at Marea, not far from the site of 
later Alexandria. At Elephantine a similar garrison 
was maintained against any invasion from the south. 
Herodotus relates that two hundred and forty thousand 



390 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

of the warrior-class, having been kept at one station for 
three years without being relieved, thereupon deserted 
and departed in a body southward to offer their services 
to the king of Ethiopia at Meroe. While his numbers 
are incredibly exaggerated, as usual, the story must con- 
tain a germ of fact as it accords with all that we know 
of the conditions in Psamtik's time. As a concession 
to this class his body-guard contained a thousand men 
from each of the two classes, the Hermotybies and 
Calasyries; but he will have had many more of his 
hardy Greeks and Carians at his hand on all occasions. 
392. The prosperous and powerful Egypt which was 
now emerging from the long Decadence was totally 
different from the Egypt of any earlier renascence. It 
was impossible again to rouse the nation to arms as in 
the days when the Hyksos were expelled; it was there- 
fore inevitably the deliberate policy of Psamtik I, while 
expending every effort to put the nation on a sound 
economic basis, at the same time to depend upon foreign 
soldiery for the military power indispensable to an 
oriental ruler. His necessarily constant care was to 
transmute the economic prosperity of the land into 
military power. In a word, the wealth of the land must 
nourish and maintain a formidable army, even though 
the effective portion of this army might be aliens. A 
revival under such conditions as these is due almost 
solely to the personal initiative of the sovereign who 
manipulates the available forces: those of power and 
those of industry; so employing them all in harmonious 
interaction that prosperity and effective power result. 
Psamtik was himself the motive and creative power, 
while the people were but given the opportunity to 
fulfil their proper functions and to move freely in their 
wonted channels. There was no longer any great 



THE RESTORATION 391 

relative vitality in the nation, and the return of ordered 
government and consequent prosperity enabled them 
to indulge the tendency to retrospect already observable 
in the Twenty-third Dynasty. The nation fell back 
upon the past and consciously endeavoured to restore 
and rehabilitate the vanished state of the old days 
before the changes and innovations introduced by the 
Empire. Seen through the mist of over a thousand 
years, what was to them ancient Egypt was endowed 
with the ideal perfection of the divine regime which had 
preceded it. The worship of the kings who had ruled 
at Memphis in those remote days was revived and the 
ritual of their mortuary service maintained and en- 
dowed. Their pyramids were even extensively re- 
stored and repaired. The archaic titles and the long 
array of dignities worn by the lords at the court and in 
the government of the pyramid-builders were again 
brought into requisition, and in the externals of govern- 
ment everything possible was done to clothe it with the 
appearance of remote antiquity. The writing of the 
time was also given an archaic colour on formal and 
official monuments, and its antique forms must have 
cost the Saite scribes long and weary study. In religion 
every effort was made to purify the pantheon of all 
modern interlopers and to rid the ritual of every inno- 
vation. Everything foreign in religion was banished, 
and Set, the god of the waste and the desert, was every- 
where exterminated. An inexorable exclusiveness, like 
that which was soon to take possession of the new-born 
Jewish community, was also now universally enforced. 
The ancient mortuary texts of the pyramids were re- 
vived, and although frequently not understood were 
engraved upon the massive stone sarcophagi. The 
Book of the Dead, which now received its last redaction, 



392 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

becoming a roll sixty feet long, shows plain traces of 
the revival of this ancient mortuary literature. In the 
tomb-chapels we find again the fresh and pleasing 
pictures from the life of the people in marsh and 
meadow, in workshop and shipyard. They are perfect 
reproductions of the relief scenes in the mastabas of the 
Old Kingdom, so perfect indeed that at the first glance 
one is not infrequently in doubt as to the age of the 
monument. Indeed, a man named Aba at Thebes sent 
his artists to an Old Kingdom tomb near Siut to copy 
the reliefs thence for use in his own Theban tomb, 
because the owner of the ancient tomb was also named 
Aba. 

393. In this endeavour to reconstitute modern re- 
ligion, society and government upon ancient lines, the 
archaizers must consciously or unconsciously have been 
constantly thwarted by the inevitable mutability of the 
social, political and economic conditions of a race. 
The two thousand years which had elapsed since the 
Old Kingdom could not be annihilated. Through the 
deceptive mantle of antiquity with which they cloaked 
contemporary conditions, the inexorable realities of the 
present were discernible. The solution of this difficulty, 
when perceived, was the same as that attempted by 
the Hebrews in a similar dilemma : it was but to attrib- 
ute to the modern elements also a hoary antiquity, as 
the whole body of Hebrew legislation was attributed to 
Moses. The theoretical revival was thus rescued. 
This was especially easy for the Egyptian of the Saitic 
restoration; for, long before his time it had been cus- 
tomary to attribute to the Old Kingdom especially 
sacred mortuary texts, favourite medical prescriptions 
and collections of proverbial wisdom. While in some 
cases such attribution may have been correct in the 



THE RESTORATION 393 

days of the Empire, this was no longer generally true 
in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. In one particular espe- 
cially, it was impossible to force the present into the 
ancient mould; I refer to the artistic capacity of the 
people. This always fruitful element of their culture 
was now a marked exception to the lifeless lack of initia- 
tive displayed in all other functions of life. Here their 
creative vitality, already revived in the Ethiopian period, 
was still unblighted, and their artistic sense was keenly 
alive to the new possibilities open to them under the 
new order. We have seen that the Restoration in 
religion demanded the revival of the old subjects in the 
tomb-chapel reliefs, and in spite of the likeness of these 
copies to their ancient models, more than a superficial 
examination invariably discloses a distinct character 
and manner peculiarly their own. There is just that 
touch of freedom which the art of the Old Kingdom 
lacked, and a soft beauty in their sinuous and sweeping 
lines which adds an indescribable grace to the reliefs of 
the Saitic school. While the old canons and conven- 
tionalities still prevailed in general, there was now and 
then an artist who could shake them off and place the 
human body in relief with the shoulders drawn in proper 
relations and freed from the distortion of the Old 
Kingdom. It was this freedom and ability to see things 
as they are which led to a school of portraiture surpass- 
ing the best work of the Old Kingdom. These portrait 
heads both in relief and in the round, display a study 
of the bony conformation of the skull, the folds and 
wrinkles of the skin, in fine a mastery of the entire 
anatomical development and a grasp of individual 
character such as no early art had yet achieved. Such 
works can only be compared with the portraits of the 
Greek sculptors at the height of their skill, and they 



394 THE RESTORATION AXD THE EXD 

do not suffer by the comparison. The artist in bronze 
was now supreme, hollow easts of considerable size were 
made and animal forms are especially fine. Superb 
bronze statues elaborately inlaid with rich designs in 
gold, silver and electrum display surprising refinements 
in technique. Works in bronze are now very numerous 
and most of those which fill the modern museums were 
produced in this age. Industrial art flourished as 
never before and the Egyptian craftsman was rarely 
rivalled. In fayence the manufactories of the time were 
especially successful and prolific, and the museum col- 
lections are filled with works of this period. The 
architecture of the time has, alas, perished, and if we 
may judge from the achievements of the Saitic sculptor, 
we have in this respect suffered irreparable loss ; for it is 
probable that we owe the origin of the rich and beautiful 
columns of Ptolemaic temples to the Saite architect. 

394. While the material products of art offered visual 
evidence of marked divergence from the ancient proto- 
type which it was supposed to follow, such incongruities 
in the organization of the government, while not less 
real, were probably not so evident. From the few sur- 
viving monuments of the period the real character of 
the state is not clearly determinable. Geographically 
the Delta had forever become the dominant region. 
The development ot commerce with the northern world 
and related political reasons had made this northward 
shift inevitable and permanent. Psamtik and his 
descendants lived in their native Sais, which now became 
a great and splendid city, adorned with temples and 
palaces. Thebes no longer possessed either political or 
religious significance. The valley of the Nile was but an 
appendage upon the Delta. We have already referred 
to the survival of certain of the feudal lords. Thev 



THE RESTORATION 395 

may have retained their lands, but, judging from the 
case of Mentemhet of Thebes, they could not bequeath 
them to their sons. With these exceptions all the land 
belonged to the crown and was worked by the peasant 
serfs, who rendered twenty per cent, of the yield to the 
Pharaoh. Priests and soldiers were exempt from 
taxation. The administration must have been con- 
ducted as under the Empire by local officials of the cen- 
tral government, who collected the taxes and possessed 
judicial powers. The archaic titles which they bear, as 
far as I have been able to trace them, usually correspond 
to no real functions in government. In education and 
training these men are fundamentally different from 
the scribal officials of the Empire, in that they are not of 
necessity possessed of a knowledge of the old hierogly- 
phic. Since the Ethiopian Dynasty there has grown 
up a very cursive form of hieratic, the ancient running 
hand. This new and more rapid form, an unconscious 
development, is better suited to the needs of practical 
business and administration, and being in common and 
everyday use was therefore known to the Greeks as 
"demotic" writing, a term now usually applied to it 
at the present day. It represented the language then 
spoken, while the hieroglyphic of the time, which con- 
tinued to lead an artificial existence, employed the ar- 
chaic form of the language which had prevailed centuries 
before. That this fundamental change was but one 
among many modifications and alterations in the govern- 
ment, must of necessity have resulted from the changed 
conditions. Socially, the influence of revived industry 
had divided the people into more or less sharply defined 
classes or guilds, determined by their occupations; but 
"caste" in the proper significance of the term, was as 
unknown as at any time in Egyptian history. 



396 THE RESTORATION AND THE EXD 

395. The priests succeeded little better than the 
officials in their revival of the good old times. It is, 
indeed, to the priesthoods in general that the attempted 
restoration must be largely attributed. The religious, 
like the political, centre, had completely shifted; Thebes, 
as we have stated, no longer possessed any religious 
significance. In the Delta cities of Sais, Athribis and 
Buto were the wealthiest temples. Quite in contrast 
with conditions in the Old Kingdom, the priests now 
constituted a more exclusive and distinct class than ever 
before, and the office had become inalienably hereditary. 
Venerated by the people, it was a political necessity that 
their maintenance should be provided for by liberal 
revenues. While they no longer possessed any political 
influence to be compared with that which they exercised 
under the Empire, yet we find the old count of Thinis 
deprived of his ancient revenues from the oases and the 
local ferry, that they may be transferred to Osiris. 
The reverse was, however, the rule, as we shall see. 
The old gods could not be resuscitated; among them 
only Osiris still maintained himself. His consort, Isis, 
contrary to the ancient customs, acquired an elaborate 
cultus, and the wide celebrity which afterward brought 
her such general favour in the classic world. Imhotep, 
the wise man of Zoser's court twenty-five hundred years 
earlier, now gained a place among the gods, as son of 
Ptah, an innovation of which the priests were uncon- 
scious. The religion which the priests represented was 
the inevitable result of the tendencies observable at the 
close of the Empire. It consisted as far as daily life 
and conduct were concerned, like the Rabbinical faith 
born under very similar conditions, in innumerable ex- 
ternal usages, and the most painful observance of the 
laws of ceremonial purity. It was an age of unhealthy 



THE RESTORATION 397 

and excessive religiousness. We find nobles and 
officials everywhere erecting sanctuaries to the gods. 
While formerly only one of a class of animals was 
sacred, now in many cases every representative of that 
class was inviolable. The increased reverence for these 
manifestations of the gods is especially illustrated in 
the elaborate worship of the Apis-bull, a form of Ptah, 
and the vast sepulchre, where they now received their 
gorgeous burial, the Serapeum of Memphis became 
famous among the Greeks. While a slight inclination 
toward this tendency was observable already in the Old 
Kingdom, it now took on the crass form, which finally 
led to the fanatical excesses of the Alexandrians in 
Roman times. It is probable that the priests read into 
all these outward manifestations, as into their mytho- 
logical tales, a higher meaning, which they never 
originally possessed; but we are unable to determine 
whether they actually taught all that the Greeks attri- 
bute to them of this character. While their education 
in the Empire had kept them in contact with the living 
times, they were now obliged to learn a language and 
a method of writing, and to acquaint themselves with a 
mass of inherited literature, with which the busy world 
around them had long parted company. It was by 
this process that the ancient writing, already early re- 
garded as of divine origin, became a sacred accomplish- 
ment, the especial characteristic of sacred learning, and 
was therefore called by the Greeks "hieroglyphs" or 
sacred glyphs. Such an education necessarily projected 
the priests far back into a long forgotten world, whose 
inherited wisdom, as among the Chinese or the Moham- 
medans, was the final word. The writings and sacred 
rolls of the past were now eagerly sought out, and with 
the dust of ages upon them, they were collected, sorted 



398 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

and arranged. Thus the past was supreme; the priest 
who cherished it lived in a realm of shadows, and for 
the contemporary world he had no vital meaning. 
Likewise in Babylon the same retrospective spirit was 
now the dominant characteristic of the reviving empire 
of Nebuchadrezzar. The world was already growing 
old, and everywhere men were fondly dwelling on her 
faraway youth (BAR, IV, 956; 1024; 967 jf.; 989 fi.; 
1015 fi.). 

396. While the internal aspects of the Saitic period 
are so largely retrospective that it has been well called 
the Restoration, yet its foreign policy shows little 
consideration for the past. In sharp contrast with the 
attempted restoration and especially with the national 
exclusiveness, now more intense than ever, was the 
foreign policy of Psamtik I. The reorganization of 
ordered and centralized government, and the restoration 
of the elaborate irrigation system, were quite sufficient 
to ensure the internal prosperity of the country along 
traditional lines. But Psamtik's early life and training 
led him to do more than this. He comprehended the 
great economic value of foreign traffic to the nation he 
was building up; nor did he fail to perceive that such 
traffic might be variously taxed and made to yield large 
revenues for his own treasury. He therefore revived 
the old connections with Syria; Phoenician galleys 
filled the Nile mouths, and Semitic merchants, fore- 
runners of the Aramaeans so numerous in Persian times, 
thronged the Delta. If Psamtik was able to employ 
the Greeks in his army he found them not less useful 
in the furtherance of his commercial projects. From 
the eighth century B.C. those southern movements of 
the northerners, of which the incursions of the "sea- 
peoples " over five hundred years earlier (pp. 333/?.) were 



THE RESTORATION 399 

the premonitory symptom, had now become daily 
occurrences. The Greeks, pushing in from the far 
North, and emerging clearly for the first time into 
history, had long since gained possession of the Greek 
peninsula and its adjacent archipelago, with their 
centres of Mycsenean civilization, and they now ap- 
peared as prosperous communities and rapidly growing 
maritime states, whose fleets, penetrating throughout 
the Mediterranean, offered the Phoenicians sharp and 
incessant competition. Their colonies and industrial 
settlements, with active manufactories, rapidly fringed 
the Mediterranean and penetrated the Black Sea. 
Psamtik was probably the first of the Egyptian rulers 
who favoured such colonies in Egypt. Ere long the 
country ,was filled with Greek merchants and their 
manufacturing settlements were permitted, especially 
in the western Delta, near the royal residence at Sais. 
There was a Greek and also a Carian quarter in Mem- 
phis, and not unlikely other large cities were similarly 
apportioned to accommodate foreigners, especially 
Greeks. 

397. Lines of communication between the Greek 
states and Egypt soon established direct, continuous 
and in some respects intimate relations between them. 
Greek recruits for the army of course followed constantly 
upon those whom Psamtik had employed in his con- 
quest, and these, with the active intercourse of the 
indefatigable Greek merchants, carried back to the 
mother-country an ever increasing fund of folk-tales, 
telling of the wondrous Egyptian world, which was so 
new and strange to them. The marvels of Thebes 
were celebrated in the Homeric songs, now assuming 
their final form, and Egyptian gods appeared in their 
mvths. 



400 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

398. Ultimately the Greeks became very familiar 
with the externals of Egyptian civilization, but they 
never learned to read its curious writing sufficiently 
well to understand its surviving records, or to learn 
the truth as to its ancient history. As time passed a 
body of interpreters arose, who became so numerous as 
to form a recognized class. By these such questioners 
as Herodotus were often grossly imposed upon. The 
impenetrable reserve of the Egyptians, and again their 
unlimited claims, profoundly impressed the imaginative 
Greek. This impression could only be deepened by 
the marvels with which the land was filled: the enor- 
mous buildings and temples, whose construction was 
often a mystery to him; the mystic writing which covered 
their walls; the strange river, unlike any he had ever 
seen; the remarkable religion, whose mysterious ritual 
seemed to him the cloak for the most profound truths; 
the unquestionably vast antiquity of countless impres- 
sive monuments all about him; all this, where an un- 
prejudiced, objective study of the people and their 
history was impossible, inevitably blinded even the 
Greek of the highest intelligence and culture, who now 
visited the country. Thus the real character of the 
Egyptian and his civilization was never correctly under- 
stood by the Greeks, and their writings regarding the 
Nile country, even though often ridiculing its strange 
customs, have transmitted to us a false impression as to 
the value especially of its intellectual achievements. 
The Greek, with his insatiable-ihirst for the truth, and 
his constant attitude of healthy inquiry, was vastly 
superior, I need hardly say, to the Egyptian, whose 
reputed wisdom he so venerated. Under these circum- 
stances it was only the later political history of the 
country, the course of which came under their own 



THE RESTORATION 401 

immediate observation, with which the Greeks were 
familiar. From the time of Psamtik I we possess a 
fund of popular Greek tradition regarding the Twenty- 
sixth Dynasty, which, if properly used, throws an 
invaluable light upon a time when native records and 
monuments, located as they were in the exposed Delta, 
have almost entirely perished. 

399. Before the impact of the foreign life, which thus 
flowed in upon Egypt, the Egyptian showed himself 
entirely unmoved, and held himself aloof, fortified 
behind his ceremonial purity and his inviolable reserve. 
If he could have had his way he would have banished 
the foreigners one and all from his shores; under the 
circumstances, like the modern Chinese, he trafficked 
with them and was reconciled to their presence by the 
gain they brought him. Thus, while the Saitic Phar- 
aohs, as we shall further see, were profoundly influenced 
by the character of the Greeks, the mass of the Egyp- 
tians were unscathed by it. On the other hand, the 
Greeks must have profited much by the intercourse 
with Nile valley civilization although it will have been 
chiefly material profit which they gained. They found 
there, perfected and ready at hand, the technical 
processes, which their unique genius was so singularly 
able to apply to the realization of higher ends than those 
governing the older civilizations. They certainly bor- 
rowed artistic forms in plenty, and the artistic influences 
from the Nile, which had been felt in the Mycenaean 
centres of civilizations as far back at least as the Twelfth 
Dynasty (2000 B.C.), were still a power in the same 
regions of the North. It can be no accident, in spite 
of the widespread " law of frontality," that the archaic 
Apollos (so-called), first produced by the Ionian 
Greeks, reproduce the standing posture prevalent in 



402 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

Egypt in every detail, including the characteristic 
thrusting forward of the left foot. Of the Saitic portrait 
sculptor, the Greeks might have learned much, even far 
down toward the days of their highest artistic achieve- 
ments. Evidence of intellectual influence is more 
elusive, but there is a grain of truth in the Greek tradi- 
tion that they received their philosophy from Egypt. 
The philosophizing theology of the Egyptian priests 
contained suggestive germs, which may easily have 
found their way into the early Ionian systems. The 
notion of the primeval intelligence and the creative 
"word," already conceived as far back as the Eighteenth 
Dynasty (p. 266), could hardly fail to influence the 
educated Greeks who very early visited Egypt, long 
before such a conception had arisen in Greece. The 
insistent belief of the Egyptian in the life hereafter and 
his elaborate mortuary usages, unquestionably exerted 
a strong influence upon Greek and Roman alike; and 
the wide dissemination of Egyptian religion in the 
classic world, demonstrates the deep impression which 
it now made. To this day its symbols are turned up 
by the spade throughout the Mediterranean basin. 
It was under Psamtik I that these influences from 
Egypt begin to be traceable in the states, which were 
then laying the foundations of later European civiliza- 
tion; and it is significant as an indication of the great 
restorer's personal prestige in the Greek world that the 
powerful Periander of Corinth named his nephew and 
successor Psammetichos. 

400. By 640 b. c. Psamtik felt himself strong enough 
to resume the old projects of conquest in Asia, to revive 
Egypt's traditional claims upon Syria-Palestine, and to 
dispute their possession with Assyria. He invaded 
Philistia and for many years besieged Ashdod; but his 



THE RESTORATION 403 

ambitions there were rudely dashed by the influx of 
Scythian peoples from the far north, who overran 
Assyria and penetrated southward to the frontier of 
Egypt. According to Herodotus they were bought 
off by Psamtik, who by liberal gifts succeeded thus in 
ransoming his kingdom. It was more probably his own 
strong arm that delivered his land. He had already 
saved it from centuries of weakness and decay, and when 
he died after a reign of fifty-four years, he left Egypt 
enjoying such peaceable prosperity as had not been hers 
since the death of Ramses III, five hundred years 
before. 



XXVIII 

THE FINAL STRUGGLES: BABYLOX AXD PERSIA 

401. Whex Xecho succeeded his father Psamtik I 
on the throne of Egypt in 609 b. c, there seemed to be 
nothing to prevent his re-establishment of the Egyptian 
Empire in Asia. As Psarutik's kingdom had pros- 
pered, that of the once powerful X'inevites had rapidly 
declined. From the fearful visitation of the Scythian 
hordes in the reign of Psamtik I, it never recovered, and 
when Babylon* made common cause with Cyaxares, 
king of the rising Median states, Xineveh was unable 
to withstand their united assaults. Its inevitable fall 
was anticipated by the western peoples, and being 
clearly foreseen by the Hebrew Xahuin, he exultingly 
predicted its destruction. At the accession of Xecho 
it was in such a state of collapse that he immediately 
began the realization of his father's imperial designs in 
Asia. He built a war-fleet both in the Mediterranean 
and the Red Sea, and in his first year invaded Philistia. 
Gaza and Askalon, which offered resistance, were taken 
and punished, and with a great army Xecho then 
pushed northward. In Judah, now freed from the 
Assyrians, the prophetic party was in the ascendancy. 
A3 they had been delivered from Sennacherib nearly 
a century before, so they fondly believed they might 
now face Egypt with the same assurance of deliverance. 
On the historic plain of Megiddo, where Egypt had 

4W 



THE FIXAL STRUGGLES 405 

first won the supremacy of Asia nearly nine hundred 
years before, the young Josiah recklessly threw himself 
upon Necho's great army. His pitiful force was quickly 
routed and he himself, fatally wounded, retired to die 
at Jerusalem. Expecting to meet at least some attempt 
on the part of Assyria to save her western dominions, 
Necho pressed on to the Euphrates without delay. But 
Assyria was now too near her end to make even the 
feeblest effort to stay his progress; he found no army 
there to meet him, and not feeling himself strong enough 
to advance against Nineveh, he returned southward, 
having gained all Syria, and at one stroke recovered the 
whole of the old Egyptian conquests of the Empire. 
Arriving at Ribleh on the Orontes, three months after 
the battle of Megiddo, he sent for Josiah's son, Jehoa- 
haz, whom the Judeans had placed upon his father's 
throne, and threw him into chains. He then installed 
Eliakim, another son of Josiah, as king of Judah under 
the name Jehoiakim, and imposed upon him a tribute 
of one hundred talents of silver and one of gold. The 
unfortunate Jehoahaz was carried to Egypt by the 
Pharaoh and died there. It is characteristic of the 
altered spirit of the times that Necho dedicated to the 
Milesian Branchidse the corselet which he had worn on 
this victorious campaign, — of course in recognition of 
the Greek mercenaries, to whom he owed his successes. 
How different all this from the days of Amon's suprem- 
acy, when victory came from him alone ! Fragments 
of a stela dating from Necho's supremacy in Syria and 
bearing his name in hieroglyphic, have been found at 
Sidon (Jer., XLVII, 1-5; " PSBA, XVI (1894), pp. 
91/.). 

402. Necho's new Asiatic empire was not of long 
duration. In less than two years the combined forces 



406 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

of Xabupalucur, the king of Babylon, and of the Medes 
under Cyaxares, had accomplished the overthrow of 
Xineveh. The city was destroyed and the nation 
utterly annihilated as a political force. The two con- 
querors divided the territory made available by their 
conquest, the Mede taking the north and northeast and 
the Babylonian the south and southwest. Thus Syria 
fell by inheritance to Xabupalucur. He was now old 
and unable to undertake its recovery; but he quickly 
dispatched his son, Xebuchadrezzar, to oppose Xecho. 
Hearing of his coming, Xecho was wise enough to collect 
his forces and hasten to meet him at the northern 
frontier on the Euphrates in 605 b. c. At Carchemish 
the motley army of the Pharaoh was completely routed 
by the Babylonians. The victory was so decisive that 
Xecho did not attempt to make another stand or to 
save Palestine, but retreated in haste to the Delta 
followed by Xebuchadrezzar. The ignominious retreat 
of Xecho's proud army, as it hurried through Palestine, 
created a profound impression among the Hebrews of 
Judah, and Jeremiah, who was interpreting to his people 
in Jerusalem the movements of the nations, hurled 
after the discomfited Egyptians his burden of sarcasm 
and derision. Had not the young Kaldean prince now 
been summoned to Babylon by the death of his father, 
the conquest of Egypt, or at least its further humiliation, 
must inevitably have followed. Unwilling to prolong 
his absence from the capital under these circumstances, 
Xebuchadrezzar came to an understanding with Xecho, 
and returned home to assume the crown of Babylon. 
Thus Syria-Palestine became Babylonian dominion 
(Jer., XLVI, 1-12). 

403. Xecho's agreement with Babylon involved the 
relinquishment of his ambitious designs in Asia. He 



THE FINAL STRUGGLES 407 

held to the compact, and made no further attempt to 
maintain Egyptian sovereignty there, as the Hebrew 
annals record: "And the king of Egypt came not again 
any more out of his land : for the king of Babylon had 
taken from the brook of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, 
all that pertained to the king of Egypt" (II Kings, xxiv, 
7). He even made no effort to intervene when Nebu- 
chadrezzar besieged and captured Jerusalem and 
deported the chief families of Judah in 596 b. c. The 
Pharaoh's energies were now employed in the further- 
ance of his father's commercial enterprises. He at- 
tempted to re-excavate the ancient canal from the Delta, 
connecting the eastern arm of the Nile with the Red 
Sea, but did not succeed. Necho's interest in maritime 
progress is further evidenced by his famous exploring 
expedition. He dispatched a crew of Phoenician 
mariners with instructions to sail around Africa, or as 
Herodotus calls it, Libya. As the Egyptians had from 
the earliest time supposed their land to be surrounded 
by sea, the Okeanos of the Greeks, with which the Nile 
had connection in the south, the feat of the Phoenicians, 
which they actually accomplished in three years, excited 
no surprise. 

404. Psamtik II, who followed his father Necho about 
593 b. c, either regarded Egypt's prospects in Asia as 
hopeless or continued the compact of his father with 
Babylon. Unable to accomplish anything in the North,, 
he turned his attention southward and attempted the 
recovery of Nubia, lost to Egypt since the foundation 
of the Ethiopian kingdom. He invaded lower Nubia, 
and an advanced body of his troops pushed up almost 
to the second cataract, where they left a record of their 
visit at Abu Simbel, in a Greek inscription on one of the 
colossi of Ramses II, before his great temple there. 



40S THE RESTORATION AND THE EXD 

Although, as we have before remarked, this invasion 
doubtless furnished the Ethiopians a further reason for 
transferring their capital above the cataracts to Meroe, 
yet the results of the expedition were probably not 
lasting, and Lower Xubia never became an integral 
part of the Saite kingdom (Note XII; BAR, IV, 988 A- 
988 J). 

405. Meanwhile the Saites were still casting longing 
eyes upon the ancient dominions of Egypt in Asia, and 
when Apries (the Ha'abre' of the Egyptians, or Hophra' 
of the Hebrews) succeeded his father Psamtik II early 
in 588 b. c, he immediately resumed the old designs of 
his house to recover them. Already under Xecho, in 
597 b. c, as we have seen, Xebuchadrezzar had been 
obliged to advance on Jerusalem in consequence of the 
rebellion of Jehoiachin, an event in which Xecho may 
have secretly had a hand. The next year the unhappy 
city capitulated, and some nine or ten thousand of the 
better class were deported to Babylonia, leaving only 
" the poorest sort of the people of the land." Jehoiachin's 
uncle, Zedekiah, was appointed by Xebuchadrezzar as 
king over the afflicted land. When he had been ruling 
nine years we find him in revolt against Babylon. The 
reasons for this foolish policy are quite evident. The 
date of his rebellion coincides with the accession of 
Apries. Tyre and Sidon, Moab and Amnion had also 
sent their emissaries to the Judean king, and when the 
weighty influence of Apries also fell into the scales the 
vacillating Zedekiah was no longer able to withstand, 
and he half -heart ed\v joined the rest in casting off the 
sovereignty of Babylon. The events formerly following 
similar revolts from Assyrian authority were now re- 
enacted under the Babylonians; the allies were unable 
to act quickly in concert. Indeed Apries made it im- 



THE FINAL STRUGGLES 409 

possible that they should do so by attacking Tyre and 
Sidon. He dispatched an expedition to attempt the 
conquest of the north by sea, perhaps hoping to meet 
Nebuchadrezzar on the Euphrates as his grandfather 
Necho had done. He fought a victorious naval engage- 
ment with the Tyrians and Cyprians and landed enough 
troops to take Sidon, whereupon the other Phoenician 
cities yielded. It is possible also that he hoped thus to 
divert Nebuchadrezzar from the south where a portion 
of his army had appeared early in 587, or to cut off this 
southern army now operating against Jerusalem; and 
if so, the movement was brilliantly conceived. But it 
was never pushed far enough to accomplish anything 
inland; and Nebuchadrezzar wisely fixed his base of 
operations well northward, at Ribleh on the Orontes, 
where he was able to contemplate the Egyptian opera- 
tions without concern. His enemies were exhausting 
themselves against each other, and had Apries advanced 
inland Nebuchadrezzar could have quickly confronted 
him with a force from Ribleh. It is perhaps during this 
brief supremacy of the Pharaoh in Phoenicia that we 
should place the fragmentary Egyptian monuments, 
pieces of stone statues, altars and bits of inscribed stone 
from the Saite age, found by Renan at Arvad, Tyre and 
Sidon. Now also the Pharaoh apparently controlled 
for a time a domain in Lebanon (II Kings, xxiv, 15; 
Diodorus, I, 68; Rev. arch, n. s., VII, 1863 *; pp. 194- 
198; BAR, IV, 970). 

406. When in the spring of 586 B.C. the troops of 
Apries at last appeared in the south to threaten the 
Babylonian besiegers of Jerusalem, they brought the 
beleaguered city a brief moment's respite only; for the 
Egyptian forces again showed themselves unable to 
cope with the armies of Asia. Indeed, it is possible that 



410 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

Apries relinquished his claims in Palestine without a 
blow. Thus the predictions of Jeremiah, who had 
constantly proclaimed the folly of depending upon assist- 
ance from Egypt, were brilliantly confirmed. In the 
summer of 586 b. c. Jerusalem fell ;• it was razed to the 
ground and the inglorious Zedekiah, having been taken 
to Nebuchadrezzar's camp at RibFeh, was blinded, after 
witnessing the slaughter of his sons. The Judean 
nation was annihilated, but no decisive blow had been 
struck which might cripple the power of Egypt, the 
instigator of the trouble. It was not for many years that 
Nebuchadrezzar was able to attempt anything in this 
direction; his first obligation being the punishment of 
Tyre, which maintained itself for thirteen years, finally 
yielding in 573 b. c. 

407. In spite of ill success in Asia, Apries enjoyed 
unbounded prosperity in the internal administration 
of his realm, and the kingdom flourished as only under 
his great grandfather, its founder. From the west also 
he received the revenues of the Oasis region and in 
the Northern Oasis his official Wahibrenofer built a 
temple. But in the full enjoyment of his wealth and 
splendour a tragic end was awaiting him from an un- 
expected quarter. He found great difficulty in bridling 
his troops, of whatever nationality. On one occasion 
the Libyans, Greeks and Syrians attempted to desert 
and migrate to Nubia, as in the days of Psamtik I a 
body of the warrior-class had done. How many were 
involved in this revolt under Apries it is impossible to 
establish, but they were sufficiently numerous to render 
the king very apprehensive, and the record of the event 
distinctly states that "his majesty feared." Another 
misunderstanding with the native warrior-class did not 
end so happily. The new Greek settlement at Cyrene 



THE FINAL STRUGGLES 411 

was growing into a flourishing state and encroach- 
ing upon the Libyans who lay between Cyrene and 
Egypt. Apries deemed it wise to check the develop- 
ment of the Greek colony and sent to the aid of the 
Libyans a body of Egyptian troops naturally not in- 
cluding among them any of his Greek mercenaries. 
Despising their adversaries, the Egyptians advanced 
in careless confidence, but were totally defeated and 
almost annihilated by the Cyrenian Greeks. Smarting 
under their discomfiture they were so filled with resent- 
ment toward Apries that they concluded he had dis- 
patched them against Cyrene with the purpose of ridding 
himself of them. A revolt of the warrior-class followed, 
which swelled to dangerous proportions. Apries there- 
upon commissioned one of his nobles, Ahmose, or 
Amasis, as Herodotus calls him, a relative of the royal 
house, to conciliate the revolters. So skilfully did 
Amasis manipulate the situation that the disaffected 
soldiery soon proclaimed him king, and a messenger 
of Apries, sent to recall the traitor, was dismissed with 
insult and contumely. Herodotus narrates that a 
battle now ensued in which the Greek mercenaries of 
Apries, heavily outnumbered by the native troops of 
Amasis, were beaten and Apries taken prisoner. It is 
possible that he is here confusing the situation with the 
later battle which, as we know from a contemporary 
document, occurred between the forces of the two 
rivals. However this may be, Amasis, while treating 
Apries with kindness and not yet dethroning him, laid 
a vigourous hand upon the sceptre. A coregency en- 
sued in which Apries doubtless played but a feeble part; 
and a monument or two showing the two rulers together 
has survived. Alongside the cartouche, which he now 
assumed, Amasis continued to bear the old titles be- 



412 THE RESTORATION AND THE EXD 

longing to his former less exalted offices. In the third 
year of the coregeney, however, a struggle between the 
two regents arose. Apries, as Herodotus knew, gained 
the adherence of the Greeks, and with an army of these 
mercenaries, supported by a fleet, advanced upon Sais 
from the North. Some time after the resulting battle, 
which went against Apries, he was slain by his pursuers. 
Amasis gave him honourable burial, befitting a king, 
among his ancestors in Sais, and established for him 
mortuary offerings endowed with a liberal revenue 
(BAR, IV, 989; 999 /.; 996 /.; KSGW, 1900, p. 226). 
408. It might have been supposed that Amasis, who 
owed his crown to an ebullition of national feeling, as 
opposed to the partiality shown the Greeks, would now 
have evinced his appreciation of this indebtedness in a 
marked reaction against foreign influence; but for this 
he was too sagacious a statesman. While seeming to 
curtail the privileges of the Greeks, he really gave to 
them all they wanted. The Greek merchants, who had 
hitherto enjoyed unlimited latitude in their selection of a 
field for their merchandizing, were now not allowed to 
land anywhere in the Delta, save at a city appointed 
for them by Amasis. On the Canopic mouth of the 
Nile in the western Delta, at a place where there was 
probably an older settlement of but slight importance, 
Amasis founded the new city of Xaucratis as a home 
and market for the Greeks, which they speedily made 
the most important commercial centre of Egypt, if not 
of the whole Mediterranean. It was in all essentials a 
Greek city, and the wares which were manufactured 
within its walls were, with but slight exceptions, in no 
sense Egyptian. The busy life which throbbed in its 
thronging markets and factories, the constitution of the 
city and its daily administration were just such as pre- 



THE FINAL STRUGGLES 413 

vailed in any industrial and commercial Greek com- 
munity of the mother country. All the Greeks were 
concerned more or less in its success and prosperity. 
Hence when the chief temple of Naucratis was to be 
erected, the Ionian cities of Chios, Teos, Phocsea and 
Clazomense, with Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus and 
Phaselis of the Dorians, and the zEolian Mitylene, 
together contributed a common fund to erect the 
Hellenium, a large and stately sanctuary, with a 
spacious enclosure, protected by a massive wall. 
The powerful states of iEgina, Miletus and Samos, 
however, were able to possess each a temple of their 
own. Thus while apparently restricted, the Greeks 
were still enjoying the greatest privileges in Egypt, nor 
did the regulations of Amasis ever impress them as 
hostile to their welfare in his land. When an embassy 
of the Delphians approached him for a contribution 
toward the erection of their temple, which had been 
burned (548 B.C.), he responded liberally. He sent 
gifts likewise to the temples of Lindos, Samos and 
Gyrene, and presented a magnificent corselet to the 
Spartans. He thus maintained close relations with the 
Greek world in Europe and Asia, and with the wealthy 
and powerful Polycrates of Samos he sustained a 
friendship which amounted to an alliance. He was 
always very popular with the Greeks, both at home and 
abroad, and many tales of his career and personal 
character circulated among them. 

409. Unfortunately it is almost solely in his dealings 
with the Greeks that we know anything of the achieve- 
ments of Amasis. He did not neglect his interests 
among the Egyptians, as in view of the catastrophe 
which had overtaken Apries, he was not likely to do. 
He built splendid additions to the temples of Sais and 



414 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

Memphis, and a vast monolithic chapel from the 
quarries of the first cataract, which he set up in Sais, 
excited the admiration of Herodotus. The people 
enjoyed the greatest prosperity and Herodotus avers 
that the land " contained at that time twenty thousand 
cities." He again revised the system of laws, one of 
which, demanding that every inhabitant "should an- 
nually declare to the governor of his district by what 
means he maintained himself," was adopted by Solon 
on his visit to Egypt, and enforced at Athens. But 
eventually his evident liking for the Greeks could not 
escape the notice of the Egyptian party. He had two 
frontier forts in the northeastern Delta, and from 
Daphme, one of these two, he was obliged to transfer 
the Greek garrison stationed there to Memphis, and thus 
ensure the safety of the latter strong and populous city, 
so near his residence at Sais. He was finally compelled to 
throw off the mask, and for the support of his mercenary 
army and fleet to draw upon the fortunes and revenues 
of the temples. It was no longer compatible with 
modern statesmanship that the priesthoods should be 
permitted to absorb so large a proportion of the resources 
of the land. A navy such as Egypt now possessed, and 
the large body of mercenaries in his army, drew heavily 
upon the treasury of Amasis; and his curtailment of 
the temple incomes was inevitable. It was the begin- 
ning of still more serious inroads upon the temple- 
estates in the Persian period, resulting under the 
Ptolemies in great reduction of the priestly revenues 
and the taxation of the temple-property. Politically 
impotent, the priesthoods could only swallow their 
discontent, which, however, gradually permeated all 
the upper classes. But Amasis, with a cleverness which 
became proverbial, was always able so to manipulate 



THE FINAL STRUGGLES 415 

the forces at his command that the Egyptian party 
found itself helpless and obliged to accede to his 
wishes (BAR, IV, 1014; Rev. egypt, I, 59$.; 111,105). 
410. The good understanding which Amasis con- 
stantly maintained with the Greeks made him secure 
upon the Mediterranean. In the west he controlled 
the oases and erected a temple in the Northern Oasis; 
but he was not so fortunate in his relations with the 
east. His usurpation of the crown had furnished 
Nebuchadrezzar with the coveted opportunity of 
humiliating Egypt, which the Kaldean naturally sup- 
posed would have been weakened by the internal 
dissensions incident to such a revolution. Already 
before the death of Apries in 568 b. c, the army of the 
Kaldeans appeared on the Delta frontier, but the 
course of the subsequent operations is unknown. It is 
not probable that Nebuchadrezzar purposed the con- 
quest of Egypt, which was now in a condition very 
different from the state of impotent anarchy in which 
the Assyrians had found it under the Ethiopians. In 
any case, he did not achieve the conquest of the country; 
and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who were awaiting with 
feverish longing the complete overthrow of the hated 
Pharaoh's kingdom, must have been sorely disappointed 
that the catastrophe which they had confidently pre- 
dicted to their countrymen failed to occur. As a result 
of the campaign, however, Amasis was obliged to re- 
nounce any ambitions which he may have cherished for 
the conquest of Syria-Palestine. His strong navy, 
nevertheless, enabled him completely to subdue Cyprus, 
which he organized as an Egyptian dependency, paying 
tribute to him. His naval strength, which now became 
formidable, was the foundation of the sea-power, which 
under the Ptolemies, made Egypt the dominant state 



416 THE RESTORATION AXD THE EXD 

on the Mediterranean (KSGW, 1900, p. 226; Jer., 
xliii., 8-13; Ezek., xl, 10-18). 

41 1 . Meanwhile Nebuchadrezzar had died (562 b. c. ) , 
and the disappearance of his powerful personality dis- 
tinctly diminished the prestige of the Babylonian 
Empire. As internal dissensions arose, the alliance 
with the Medes was no longer possible, and when 
finally Cyrus of Anshan, a Persian, succeeded in sup- 
planting the Median dynasty by the overthrow of the 
Median king, Astyages (550 B.C.), the position of 
Babylon was critical in the extreme. The extraordi- 
nary career of Cyrus was now a spectacle upon which 
all eyes in the west were fastened with wonder and alarm. 
Amasis was fully alive to the new danger which threat- 
ened his kingdom in common with all the other powers 
of the West. He therefore in 547 b. c. made common 
cause with them, forming a league with Croesus of 
Lydia, and the Spartans in the west; and in the east 
with Xr.buna'id of Babylon. Before the allies could 
move together, Croesus was defeated and dethroned 
-545 B.C.); and the overflowing energies of the 
new conqueror and his people, fresh and unspent for 
centuries among their native hills, were then directed 
upon Babylon, which fell in 539 B.C. Amasis was 
powerless to check their progress, while the vast 
Persian Empire was being raised upon the ruins of the 
valley of the two rivers and the kingdoms of Asia Minor. 
It was inevitable that the new world power should now 
look toward Egypt, and the last years of Amasis must 
have been darkened with anxious forebodings as he 
contemplated the undisputed supremacy of Cyrus. 
But he was spared the fate of Croesus for, when he died, 
late in 526 or early in 525 b. c, the impending catastro- 
phe had not yet overtaken his kingdom. 



THE FINAL STRUGGLES 417 

412. Amasis had ample opportunity during his long 
reign of forty-four years to display his qualities as a 
statesman. With his fertility of resource and never- 
failing cleverness, be belonged to, and was largely the 
product of, the Greek world. His nature was funda- 
mentally opposed to the conventional and sacerdotal 
conception of the Pharaoh, which so dominated the 
ancient kingship that its monuments, largely of priestly 
origin, force all the Pharaohs into the same mould, and 
depict them as rigid and colourless forms, each like all 
the others, with the same monotonous catalogue of 
divine attributes. These formal and priestly traditions 
of what constituted a Pharaoh were treated with scant 
consideration by Amasis. When he had devoted the 
morning hours to the transaction of public business, he 
loved to throw aside the pomp and formalities of state, 
and, gathering at his table a few choice friends, he gave 
himself without reserve to the enjoyment of con- 
viviality, in which wine played no small part. A 
thorough man of the world of his day, not too refined, 
open to every influence and to every pleasure which did 
not endanger his position, he showed himself neverthe- 
less a statesman of the first rank. Of his wit and 
humour the Greeks told many a tale, while the light 
and skilful touch with which he manipulated men 
and affairs won their constant admiration. But the 
character and policies of Amasis clearly disclose the fact 
that the old Egyptian world, whose career we have been 
following, has already ceased to be. Its vitality, which 
flickered again into a flame, in the art of the Saitic age, 
is now quenched forever. The Saitic state is but an 
artificial structure, skilfully built up and sustained by 
sagacious rulers, but the national career, the char- 
acteristics of which were determined by the initiative 



418 THE RESTORATION AND THE END 

and vital force of the nation itself had long ago ended. 
The fall of Egypt and the close of her characteristic 
history, were already an irrevocable fact long before 
the relentless Cambyses knocked at the doors of Pelu- 
sium. The Saitic state was a creation of rulers who 
looked into the future, who belonged to it, and had 
little or no connection with the past. They were as 
essentially non-Egyptian as the Ptolemies who followed 
the Persians. The Persian conquest in 525 B.C., 
which deprived Psamtik III, the son of Amasis of his 
throne and kingdom, was but a change of rulers, a 
purely external fact. And if a feeble burst of national 
feeling enabled this or that Egyptian to thrust off the 
Persian yoke for a brief period, the movement may be 
likened to the convulsive contractions which sometimes 
lend momentary motion to limbs from which conscious 
life has long departed. With the fall of Psamtik III, 
Egypt belonged to a new world, toward the development 
of which she had contributed much, but in which she 
could no longer play an active part. Her great work 
was done, and unable, like Nineveh and Babylon, to 
disappear from the scene, she lived on her artificial life 
for a time under the Persians and the Ptolemies, ever 
sinking, till she became merely the granary of Rome, 
to be visited as a land of ancient marvels by wealthy 
Greeks and Romans, who have left their names scratched 
here and there upon her hoary monuments, just as the 
modern tourists, admiring the same marvels, still con- 
tinue to do. But her unwarlike people, still making 
Egypt a garden of the world, have verified the words 
of the Hebrew seer, "There shall be no more a prince 
out of the land of Egypt" (Ezek., XXX, 13). 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 

(N. B. — All dates with asterisks are astronomically fixed.) 

Predynastic kingdoms already flourishing 4500 B. c. 

Introduction of calendar and earliest fixed date in 

history *4241 u 

Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt probably flour- 
ishing by 4000 " 

Accession of Menes and beginning of dynasties 3400 " 

FIRST AND SECOND DYNASTIES — 3400-2980 B. C 

Eighteen Kings, 420 years, ruling at Thinis. Tombs in Abydos 
and vicinity. Wars with Libyans, with Beduin of East, with 
Delta. Mining in Sinai. Stone masonry and arch introduced. 

OLD KINGDOM— 2980-2475 B. C. 

THIRD DYNASTY— 2980-2900 B. C. 

Zoser to Snefru, 80 years, ruling at Memphis. Zoser builds ter- 
raced pyramid of Sakkara, the oldest existing large stone 
building; continues mining in Sinai; wise man Imhotep. 
Snefru builds first real pyramids: one at Medum, another at 
Dahshur; sends fleet to Lebanon (earliest known sea-voyage 
and expedition into Syria in history); continues mining in 
Sinai, 



419 



420 



CHRONOLOGI ^AL SUMMARY^-- 

















d 






rH 














cc 






X 














to 




















a 






o 





















fe 














-0 






<u 














c 






£ 

^-^ , 














H-> 






CO 

.2 














£•■§ 






"C 














02 






■M 


















c 














c3 






3 














c y 






O 
O 














c3^ 

"flr-H 






o 














,213 






'55 














^a 






< 














PQ 












. 


© 




t>- Oi 


"tf 


co cm 


*C CO 








U3 




t^ to 


t^ 


kOiOO 


CO ^ 


CO 






t^ 




00 00 


t>- 


**- •>- ^ r-> 

4<COCq£ 

t^ 10 »o CN 


CO 1^ 


"S I s - 


O 




CM 




CM CM 


OQ 


<m -*e (M 


^ 


m 




8 




© 


1 


J> 


1 ^ 1 

00 


^2CO 






s 


> 


CO 


10 ^0 10 


C3 Tt" 






os 




X 


00 


t^ r^ r- 


t^ c3 t^- 


t^ 






<M 




<M (M 


(M 


CM <M (M 


<M <M 


CM 




cfc 




-d 






^*— s 




cu 


• 1 
IT G 




Fh 















cu 


.fa 




>» 




N 












J3 -^ 




Ph 




O 













• 0! 




e 

>> 


_d 


C 

1 




i 




-O N 

S3 

e*H , 

O T3 

3'§ 


1 

H 


i 

CM c3 


1 II 




•> 


05 


£, 




6 g 

Ph^j 

T3 .fa 
G-C 

C72 . 
eg ^ > 


C3 


-h ^- 


(1 pg .a 


■*-> 

>> 

bjo 

w 


a 

CU 

s 


3 

c 

a 
< 

c 

CO 




c 


a 

O 

c 
£4 




"0 
a 

es 

.22 

Q 
. co O. 

CO '<-* .O 


a -a 

Oh C 

a § 


-^> cu 2 

c3 O-O 

— X -S 
13 cu c_. 

CU v H 

^ to - 

C .fa 2 

O r£ 

8 S.B 




f -1 _d 




U 


00 


03 CU f-i CU 
CU >, C3 HH 

^^ 

. to . Oh 
CU e 


>-<ir:<i co r> to cS.-ti 
^^ to ^rt ^O X 




1 




a 


to 


CU 3 
.Er^ 


,_. c^ d 
H cu >» ft 


B "1 si 

sis/? 




O 


*i 


- 


a 


cu 




• Oh ' 3 

• cu • •- 






a 




Q 


MS 


Ph P 


OS 

!72 








rH 




c-i 


co ^ ir. 


CO* t^ 06 


rH 


CM 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



421 



4 

a 

03 O 



£>a 

pq 



i—i co to 
o oo »o 

CO CO CO 
CM CNJ CvJ 

^-f T— I CO 

CXI Ci 00 
j>. CO CO 
cq cm cm 



o o 

OS !>• 

to to 

cs, esi 

to o 

CM OS 

CO to 

<N CXI 



T3 

B"S 

2 g 2 • I 8 
£,£ £.2 Soo ^ 

^ >> >> £ conj3 



*^M *L 



cu -s 



-3 

o 
03 03 



o 



.2 4> 0) 






CO Tt< to CO l> 00 



, — -u 

(DM* 

p 



Oh 

a 

^ ° 

c_l 03 
i 1 to Pi -^ 

£ I & s 



r3 



03 
S 

CD 
B 

a 

• .j ."§ -9 

2 S 2 a 

1-11 * 

1 11.2 

^n ■■-■ so -" 

Sis B 

cu o o 






.2 



^d 



§fr° 






> s c 

i-5 CM CO 



d <* E 

a «« 

(V) £« 03 

.a a; A 

M 

CP <w> 



0) 

SP 

a 

o 

-a 

BJ 

CD 

flj f-i 

C =3 



P4 



422 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



2j i 




d -d 




fccid 




•oS 




d V 




inS 




S o 




c3 •*-» 








£4j 




a * 




o . 












T3 *2 




d g 




C8 fc 


a 


d ^ 






d 


P 



cc 




s 



8 



a. 
W 



a s 

e8 d 
rf Q 






d- £ 

* I 

d c 



£*3 

s. a 

<D c/2 d 

S' S g-SS 

d S •- d 
o Otsv 
^, -d cj *-* 

<L> X M -C 



I o c3 

! c £L 

I d fcO 

! u-d 

1 ,-^ d 

| .la § 
dig 



111 



© ^ s • 



so, 

d .«*Q 



| 
c 



B 

w 
o 



.2 a °^<0 
— .d d a *"^ 



s s 



IS 

a 

i 



< Cd J) 

B 3 



1 



bC 



H 

W >v= d 






CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



423 



M 



go 

a 



<V 

o 



o 

CN 



e & 



O rt d ~ 
0-g.O e3 






m 

C 

'5b 

cu 



a 
o 



o 

<m r • 

i &>_ 

2 « c3 *■• 

03 *£ «+_ CO 

c3 bC,.M.2 oS 

•c.g g>.s sw 

.2 i ^ Is ^ s 
tfP3 PQ Pn 



-t-» 

o 



o 
a. 
S 



o3 

2 • 

03 '2 

i! 



00 o 
00 t- 



8 S 



fe 



u 






oo s . 

00 c3 co 
|>. cu cu 

O _rj 
CO 



-SH 



p£3 O 

£ 2 



2ffi 



8§ 3 ^ 

'-• ^ ^ >-d 
fcH _D co __ 

8W 

^ H p., h5 co 

e « s w a 
2B#g£ 






o3 0) 
0U >* 

CU -+-> cz 

.« d « 

I'M* 

IS S£ " 

z^£-£ 

co co o3 S 
2 :=.££ 
C- O^ 









a, <u 
co ^ d 
2 o g 






S § 



>vd Sh 



+ 



-t-J C o CO 



-§K 



i§^ 



03 

d 

o 



00 S 
^ 03 

cl a 
« 3 

3ffi 



03 
cp • 

>>a 

CO 3 



fn oo as a b 



CO 



i.s 



cu 
ErS§ 



CU |> 

C5CC5 



CO N 



2 2 



8-H 



cu ^3 
^ cu 

-a &. 
^ x 
cu h 

CU 



- § r -cX 

! _, W S o3 ,M 

> d S3 > CU CO 

M d ~C __, co '-H c3 



05|-l ra ,NO O ^ 



i-i <N CO Th 



424 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 






o cr^ 



3 w d 
SPrg 




o!> 



a, 
W 



.3 |^ 
s Lg i 



S So 

O S-. 

'43 o 

£< ^ 52 



' re 






O = S 

•If 2g S~ t^ 



y 

£ 
2 
H 



1 B 

0) c3 



,*1 



O X 

o 

be <v 
P ~ 
15 






^ 5 • « ,9 O ^s 

5 O r- C ?> O 

00 tj a 






v 






U.2 



3 g*.^ S 






f ** 



I 



gco 

■3 



OT CO 



. co O 
B h U 

' >> b£-2 
CO c £ x 



a « SEE" 

a '-3 "'tis . Jf-g 

•Bill & 



-;-£ 



E/3 O 






c S ° c. ^ c 






■w"sa$r 



d 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 425 

_£$ aS ,0 goo >* 02 2 ^ 

r^ •— i^ Acs c3 C C fl r 

J.s~ -R- fr (Sag. £ 

T2 



J.rfljIKIllJ U 



t-i <N 00 «-> 

O 0> 00 S 



O « Q _, ^ CO tl »o «* 



>> ^ -.yj 






1 li -k § *-e 



£ 5 tli>i II: I ill o I 

HII11I21112 hull sf - a 

co t>^ 06 



426 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



V 



i S 

& £ 

a J 

4> ,J .3. 

> .2 ■* 3 
.— c co 

u £L cy 

» o^ 



J2 



a, 



& 

5 







S 



CO 

Oi 



a. 

w 



O go 






. cy 
O > 

50 O ^ 



2 

*| CO 
S-i o 

3 E- 1 

•5 ■«-» 

co c3 

.3 o 

1^ 



50 



o ry 



*j _"r co "^3 



+ >> CO 



>>* 



= 

8* 

r-iCQ w 



3 8 



^ o 
a 

rt 33 

— £ 



0J > O 

--3 



r 

s 



H 2 



£>-2 afl 



03 o 

<y CO 



. 3 



CO 

= <* eo •? «g 



- "Z 



t-T »o a "S 



be 



* is 



«*-co 
a o 



5oU 



CU fcC % "So 

cy •- -3 cy cy 

— 5 Z_j CO 3 

-3 = *- c g 
g 3 * I § 

«5 H 



— a; 

~ O 



U 

a3 <1 



cj cy 

3 .- 



£ 



2 ?--- H£ 



ri 



M 



id 



^ s^ r 



2*> 

< ■ 



& rz 



co aJ "C 

1 If* 1 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



427 



d 
3 



11 

d M 
i— I ^5 



O 

<3 



o 






K J 
o ^ 



-a ce 



d -i. 



d 6 
ce S 

ce d 
"C -d 

03 CH 

«3£ 



_d ^o 



a, 
a; 



bJD J, 

d ce 

11 



d fe 

.2 o 

(h d 
CO (J 

I 

03 ^ 
CD «<_ 

T3 O 



M 



5 
O 
cd 

ce 
'ce 






a ° o 



el 

o3 O u a 
15 - cu 

> g 03^ 



o _ce^3 



DO 



O O t£ 






cu d 



cu 

-8 



•2 H 



M 



i c '-P m 

^^ ^ 

ce S .is 

03 



0) 



S£ 



ce ce 



e* 03 

§ 2 

-d 
CO 



d 

s m © §,±5 g 

*> 03 O g<o£ ce g> 

3 a w d -1'3^-S 



03 -JS 

P d 



CO 



3 •- 

d •-* 
>>a ce" 

^ d d 






s 


1^ 


o 


T-l 

T-l 


T)H 


T—t 


Tj< 




* 


1 


T-l 


CO 


d> 


A 


03 


!>. 


cz 


Tf 


•* 


"<t* 


T-l 


* 


* 


T— 1 



^1 




§5 a 






03 g 

•an 

ce 


-1 




^1 


years 
ampa 
main 




. . ce 

S-ss a 6 

ce _q t- 


6(+Z) 
ather. C 
Empire 


J72 
O 

CO 

-d 


in Nu 
ess in 
at Ca 




£?! I 


<M «^H 


cd 


oo^ ft| 


i-d «? 


-O 


tep II. 

ent wit 
Napat 


S 
o 

d 


se IV. 

aign in 
annian 
;bes, m 


2 SP 




o d-.d_s 


•as* 


V3 


i" 




jo 



428 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 







o 

© a> c ! & 

"-5 ~~ 









£ £ 



3§ 






o 



aft K 



o 

g 

o 

■a. 

a 

^2 

o 

"C 

o 

S 

< 



-go 

o fl 



8S0S 

.8.6 



Is-a «3^ 






u 



oS .S3 



-3< 



£e 



> 3 *j 



S.2 .S 
-5 ^j -i-> CO ^_> — O 

eg M Q « U c£ 



o 
to ^ 

b3 



5 n * 0J > - 



S-3 
3 O <y 






C >> 3 



j; « a 



CQ W ffi X 



bo 
W 



Ss 






O) CO 



£ O 



£%<~ 



J* -a ^^ I 



.3 w-5 3 

^ CO 

. -^ co .^ t_ 

co cy o3 c3 

«■> g 3 _, 

^ld^ 

3 c3 _: 

H ft 






T3 "T3 .3 O >? qJ 

5P 3O £cS 

S P S § .3 
£j3 fa W 5c-3 3 

^ t- 3 _E^ an 






^7? 

— 



.A O 



J3 oJ rC 3 CU 

gBHSJ 



- 2 ® » 

tn -3 3 rt dj ^ 
3- w co W *C •§ p 

3 «"§ a5^c"2 

.-3 .53 ^3 "3 rt o3j3 








93 


CO 


V 










c3 




rt 


£>tf 










H 




+ 


co 






S 


3 


r> 


O ^J 




3 


9j 






a 





> 




M-l 


3. 




r. 


BO 
U 
-3 


-3 

r 


r^ 










a 


= 


- 


< 










— 




= 


SI 


s 


3 


8 


c 
> 



if 



tT 03 3 'tt 

P_£ 3,13 

-2^W 3 

«3 ^«*h 3 .2 

SCO 

^W2 g 36 

C .3 "^ «-« cy 

a^^ a.sp 
<5^ ^ww 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



429 



o s 

s ° 

o a> 

"3 Oh "5 



*-* Oh 3 

0) ST O 






3 73 

£.3 

C 73 

3 2 



o3 O 
t- -3 

a) -m 



bo 

s 

73 

3 



< -a >vj. 



03 «<-h 



03 



333 



■*3 o3 ~~ g 



03 3 c3 

.2 "3 £3 



CO 

+* 2 'So 
.S cS +j 

^pS a 

o3 >^Uh 

.si! 

*H T-t ft 

Ul <M 'S 



I s si 



o 




io »o 


tH 


<M 


»o 


o 




O i-H 




Ci 


cq 


CO 


o 


(M -Jf CO 


"5 ro 


"3 <M 


"S <N 




1— 1 3 tH 


3 — , 


3 1—1 


3 l-H 


2 


CO 


i 2 i 

O -Q O 


© 1 


X! CO 


o | 

-O (M 


»o 


*"" ' 


»0 03 LO 


o3 ^h 


03 i-H 


03 Oi 


CO 




CO CO 


CO 


CO 


cq 


1— 1 




1—1 1—1 


1—1 


i— 1 


i—i 



S • ^ 



„ o 

1 

3^ 



o3 fa 



- . "O 

<U <D 3 



l & 



P-i pq 

o 

CO 

m 

I— i 



b 



«4-i 03 

o <u 

_ -O 

£H 

3 „ 

s S 

O ci . 
fee a; o3 

*■« S °.S 
«s .2 c 
£ £ o c 
^ v§ .go ^ 

r"^ o3 c3 o3 oi 

H -fe.S ^ S3 

CO '^ £ • <N ^ 

o3 T3 33 

h H ^ o o3 

• O C ^ • rj 

^D -is o o H-t 

C3 » fi -e 73 -jg 



DO 






^ > 



11 

c3^ 

=3 ?5 2 
t 3 o3 

. T3 o3 

I ^B 

3 73 

'3 • <^ 



n ^ 0) bXD"3 -u 






I-H P-l 



fcC" 

*3 S oj 
o3 O ^ 

i 



o3 -X 





o 


^CJ 




od 


Ph 


m 




< 






_, 




r^ 


'" 


fN 


<v 




"o 


oil 


3. 


71 



3--S 









•2-5 

3^ 

o3 CJ 

3 CJ 



^H (M 



CO 



430 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



a, 



4 1 
i & 

a -a 

i— I - c3 

OS _Q 

cu b S 






Ml 



;^S. : 



<3^ g£ a, 
•s 3 S £ 8 

-* g • 3 o * 

3 -"s-i'-s^ 






S-o S3 



73 

4) O 3 



gs* 



« o 






to *< 

ceo 



0) <u 

IS 

• - 3 

^ fl Si 
° £k3 



oV* 



gjjW^ Si ° 



H GO 



* 8"! 

S o £ 

a g.a 



to gj , — ., 

S 2 <*> 





iO 


IQ 


Oi *C 




1— ( 




O O 




t2 c^» 


CM 


"if <M ±i CN 


o 


o tH 


rH 


3 ^h 3 ,-J 


m 


•is 


"3 

o 


2 i 2 i 




<m 


,fi 


CM (M 








i— ( i—( 



5*3 

O 



h J) 8 " 
0) 



tt) c a5 



IS 



x 



o 






.5 J 






OQ IT C S <u _ 



.*!* 



"5ffi ■« °'5Q 



5 c 



o 



a 8? P 



IPO 



y W o 



3-8 i 

O &Xi 

a c_^ 



gg 



+ & 



P.. -3 c3 •— • ^ c -2 

id o 




CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



431 



Q£ Oh M 

■s- s § g i 



a g I . a 

2 S « M £ * 



ss § * 

• ~ as pj 

^ >>c 

CO n CO 

Ol-I 85 

Oh 

l— 1 oS co 

«*_ feH CO 

o „ 
a 



# 



•rt to 

|J5.a 

O 



° 22 jc" 






W co 

^ cl 

J c3 

o 



cc 



14 

co -C 

co ^ 

aS co 
PhcS 

o o 

e w 

•'"' -+J 

M cS 

-3 co 

M 

co 
co 
CO 

•j3 co ^2 



Ph 



00 










1^ 




8S« 

+) (rq rt ^ 




oo 


^ 


CO 


*C 


^ § 


2 i— 1 1— ' A 


ShHH 


rH 


»H 


3 ^H 




S £n 


o i i Q 

aS O O $4 


J2 00 3 S 


3 


3 


O 1 

-o t- 


s 




SO O O 


O 


O 


aS CO 


*j 


aS iO 


<N (N " 


*-• *& ^2 


X! 


^Q 


T-i 




i— i 


^^ .Q 


^ aS aS 


aS 


aS 


T— I 


-O 


i— i 


d 










aS 





T3 
aS 



1 



1 

o 






aS .3 

co 
co 

S Oh 

CO o 

s • ^ 

2 io «s 

*-< co 

1 1; 

co ^ <D 



s § a 
s a a 

°^ 

CO ° 



«^5 

g a 



S co . 

H -S _C0*oS 

Eh w 



?JhH ^ 



3d b co 

. 4J i 5 OS OO 

S ^ . -> 

co fe O^'C 

I* "§ 

K-H CM 



fH 1— I fH 

-- 1 

©is a 

as 

o 



O ^5 



3 * 

si 



oS oS 

e .e 

a b a 



io 



O, oS 

a c 

oS 



m 



° a 

^co 

k~ © as M a> 

^ 21^ SOtS 



0) aS s-i 

h D co 

| SO 



03 5R 

<u co 

co 

co j3 

H 

81 

CO g 

Oh 



CO 

i CO 

+ -o 

^-^ CO 






IS 



r 

E 
= 

s 



Is 



IS 



« 



i-H <N 



432 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 






tf W 



>^ si *<; 

ee £ 03 

co ,0 

cj 4) D 



-£ 12 <M -^ 

o 3 ^^ 



H§*a 

3 c Si is 
■C > I & 



'fa © 



CO S"" 1 - 1 






B|_| 



i 
I 



i 




i i 
o cm 






oo o 

i-h C5 

l—l i— < 

i— i oo 



Is 



-Q ^2 -2 






k 



-H *j 



T3 O 

CD 

I J 

•§■* 

o ;q 

|*° 

. o 

co o. • 

C ^ 

'So . 

> . * 
a ^1 

e3 O 

~ '— 



r-St: 



-* CD 

J = 

CO 

CD 






^ ^ co 
• -. CO o 



DO 



CO 00 



CO cj 

t ^ 

co 

g r« 

J si 



.8* 






+ C rt 

.■8| 

a 2 J 

» 3 a 



7^ 




cu 




►»a 


-- 


— 




:, 




_= 




H 




— i 




cS 


00 


-2 


y. 


g 


P 


o 



w>3 w 

nfl ft, oa 

O _fi -O 



o 



Q 
O 

s 

w 
o 

I 

w 

s 






.23 Q 



< B 
2 £ e 

Es< CO CU 






Oi T-( -F-* 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



433 



i 

U2 



es 
o 

CO 

o3 

I 



£ Q 



it 

.221 

feL ° > 

Vk >> cu 









el 



cu 
W 



? P. 

,0 CO 

03 CU 

^-' O 

u 

>» CO 

03 CU 
CQ «» 

<*H OS 

° « G 

+j o s 
-c o g 






cuS 



H-H fO 

O CU 
CO «*-( 

w O 

if 

o f-< 

£3 



a 
S 


03 


CU 


is 





o 


cu 


CU 


> 
cu 
"0 


G 




C 








+j 


w 


en 


=3 

a 

CO 

as 


CU 

Ph 


£ 


-r) 


c3 


n 


Q 


c3 


'o 


i 


8) 


>^ 


CO 


C/J 



rt 



about 
1090-1085 

about 
1085-1067 

about 
1067-1026 

about 
1026-976 


00 iO 






abou 
976-9 

abou 
958-9 


abou 
945-7 

abou 
945-9 


3 oo 

.8 4 

o3 CM 



H 



O o3 
03 ^ 



cu 
o 



.FJ + 



CM 



CU !>• 

£^ 
O 

cu . 

T3-G ^ HH 

cu C <g 
Cm 



+ 



£K 



t-h CN CO 



+ 



cu 
CU 
O 

I 

cu 

£ 
< 



+ 



CQ - 
^ co 

ScQ 



cu 



+ 



CO 



=5 cu Cm 



o 9 



4S 

cu .^ 

N C 

'cu -^ 

co £h 

co *«_ 
C3 C 

as 



h es 



5 be 

c>'3 

o3 Q. 

ad 

cu w 



• ^ a 

cu v m 
^.'43 O 

+ Cm -2 

^ CJ 
03 •<■« cu 









t< .03 HH 



16^^ 



cuU 



CM 



434 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



•C * 2 
>, <y 

.. . > 

O CO 

a ^ 

^ MOO >» 

S3 s S 
— o &• 

if II 

03 ^-" ^ 

< 



&■ 



SJ? 



111 

M 

CO 



fr 



< 



fcc.S 
•S £L 

-*co* 

Sh c 
1—1 '3 
•C £> 

'£& 

la °° 



© C e3 



'5 cj . 



£ rt 



„ S3 08 . 

.s ^ • > 
rs ^ -s 5r» 

*§? £ 



"<# <M *C 

tf oo *f oo t5 ^ 

5 ^- 3 *>• 3 fr- 

O I O I O | 

e8 CO CS 00 <3 00 

00 t^ t^ 



00 

o ^ 

X> to 



o J 



CO 



a, 
>> 

bjD 



+ 



+ 






s 



fcJD t— I 

• S I 
So J 

+ J ^ 






♦J § CS OM 

S -r •— i °3 



H-1 3 
HH O 

CO 



IC 



-7" O a> ^J3 

H co 



+ 



X 



+ c 

S. 

t-H ^C 

c o 

i £ 
IS 

CO 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 435 

«8 j r x id 

I S| is d gj 

£ -S|^ ^ B ~~ I- »-.» 

J f§g fc 1 15 3"& 111 

g 2,&4^o-§ 2 -d-d «~^ 2 £_£> 

§ ^s^l.j ll s* ill 

s Ji,4iH£ ll ^ 111 



"oBS « <a d.d tO Ph£ 

1^1 St II ||1 

.&j0^ £ t>. 53 _2 s^CO .d ^ gf ci d CO $ PL| £ 

H CO -<CO W coco ^co H < 



©C-T 


£1 H 




■flts 


eS © 


d^ 

djd 


03 03 


K< 


03 en 


<u o> 


- t-i 


d d 




Oh a, 


ss 


d d 


o o 


SO pD 





<N 


















"d ^ 


o r- 

£oo^, 


CO 
CO 


8 


00 
00 


o ^ 




co 


b- 


CO 


■a 3 


o O -u 


1 


i 


a 


t^ 


^q -*-" d 

c3 O 
OS 


l> 


I> 


t^ 



rj d w 

cj 3 h 

CO OS oj >» a d 



>* 



u 



CO >> 



° .s >; d 

g ga co + & m . 






** S ^-arfSS- 53 ---a 



2 +3lg^J 



•< 03 



•8 gu^Jffl g Jo | 

Ph O hH H co co 



(M 



436 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



a o a h c© 

11 --S" 



CO 

CO 



CO 



8" 



Oh 

*s 

fa CO 







o 






CO 






CO 






o 






r^ 




OT 


CO 




5- 






aj ^-v 




•** 


8 CO 


r« 


a. 


>->t^ 


O 


>> 


« «o 


«< 


bJD 


CO w 


1 


W 


N c 




o 


K 






CM 






Cfl 




J5 *•" 


s 






►* 




^ £ 


CO 




8 * 


CO 




«i 



C CO i 

5 o g 
^.S 8 ce 

.2 2? 1 
fa 8-s * 

« - C CO 

-o >,a co 

T- < O w 



- = g fc^ 

o o^ a,g 

•fa -e ^ _c ^, 
fcc-S e r-" 

X -£ =3T3 ^ 
-C .3-= C rt 



o.S 
II 

G 



oSrnr^3 
\G x g - ^ 



<£ 



I 



g. 

3 jO 







^_^ 










X 








CO 


ic 1 - 1 


»o 


O 


d 


CD 
CO 


Sg 


cNJ 


8 


w 


at 


DQ 


CO 


CO 


8 


§ 


CO 

CO 





















^ s 

H 

.a u 

a s 
- I 

Ph g 



S > 

- cu 



CO 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 



437 




a, d 

>> . Q 

rvi •>* ir» 

03 * 



O 
00 

t- I 



a ej cc ^ co 

^ P_ O .d | 
•^ a; ^ O tQ 
J « 3 © 






l£ 



J£< to •-> cu _2 »d 

»o c^ a3 fl o 

o3 t^ *-d o3 "O 

a> o3 cu a> 



T3 






J=3 






OJ 






H3 






3 






i-s 






■ n 






a 






d> 












C7i 






m 






3 




cfl 


<i) 






i-a 


, — .. 


TJ 




•n 


<L> 


^ 


00 


a 


CI 




e+H 


o 









o3 




a 


cl> 


3 


fa- 
d- 
es 


if 






P 




<< 



«J &. 



o 



o 



03 I 

•g.§8 

■+■? TO 1 

-5 .s -5 .■§* 

j u <u 

H o . &, 

e*H d -*e 52 

oaep 

03 <1> ^ 



03 03 



23 ^ 



O 



£ s 

oO 



<v 



^"d 

1 ^^ g 







3 
,£ 


5 
"S 








cy 


>, 






d 


£ 
fr 




rfl 




> 


-u 


<V 


O 




T3 


J3 


n 


S 




03 03 

.d <u 
ce -d 


d 
"3 


5 




5a 

03 

a3 


03 

u 




§ 

03 




cu 


nd 

0) 


W 


03 

d 




T3 


J® 

Til 


»o 


C) 




d 


P 


po 


,Jj 


& 






— ' 


u 


8.2 


CO 




a5 




Mh 


o3 


N 


d 


6 

d 


03 

<D 

c3 
> 




CO 



^ J 


-O 


OJ 


3 


^ 


»o 


d 








d 


>— 1 


t>n 


t— 1 


03 


i 




H 


03 


03 


u 



438 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 




c 52 

-2 W3 



8 



CIS 3 rt T3 rt 3 
«£;£> £ ^ fi * to 



§o^: w - 






Ik. 6.2 



«♦* a 



a. 

w 



£ ST 55 oo 

2> csa 

. m _- N 

5,3 8 "3 -5 



tH g ft, ot 



fcH !> _» 

>>o flj 



oJ 



o c 



_ ■■. _ 
-53 



^ °* o o >> >> C^n 

■a|S 8 81^^2 

<2 



J8 . 

^ o5 
„ o 

g.g 

^? 

■5 'a 

c >*& 

^w a 

O O 

_• ^X> 

<— 1 m +j 

■ H 8) ft, 

r* §-& 



i£ 



NOTES ON RECENT DISCOVERIES 



Note I.— Since my attempt to reconstruct the Eleventh Dy- 
nasty (Abhandlungen der Berl. Akad., 1904, pp. 156-161; and 
AJSL, XXI, 163 ff. ; later and better BAR, I, 415-419), impor- 
tant new documents have turned up, which show that my recon- 
struction was in several places premature and based on too little 
evidence. According to a new stela now in Cairo (see Maspero, 
Rev. critique, Nov., 1905; Sethe, AZ, 42, 132-134), an impor- 
tant official named Henu served under the following kings in 
succession: 

1. Horus Wahenekh-Intef ("many years"). 

2. Long lacuna. 

3. His predecessor's son Horus Senekh , son of Re, 

Mentuhotep. 

A second stela in the British Museum (Naville & Hall, The 
Xlth Dynasty Temple at Deir el-Bahari, part I, 1907, p. 1), 
gives the same succession completely as follows: 

1. Horus Wahenekh-Intef. 

2. Horus Nakhtneb-Tepnefer-Intef. 

3. Horus Senekhibtowe-Mentuhotep. 

This gives us a new Mentuhotep. Furthermore, the continua- 
tion of the excavations behind Nibhepetre-Mentuhotep's temple 
at Der el-Bahri, shows that Nibhotep-Mentuhotep (of Lepsius) 
was a misreading of Nibhapetre-Mentuhotep, another new Men- 
tuhotep (replacing Nibhotep), whose tomb lies behind Nibhepetre- 
Mentuhotep's temple, showing that he was a predecessor of 
Nibhepetre. The Turin Papyrus and the development of the 
titularies of these five Mentuhoteps give us their probable order 
as below. They were preceded by the two Intefs, 1 and 2 above. 
Thus we have seven kings who may possibly have been preceded 
by a Mentuhotep, and one or two (?) Intefs who follow (?) the 
nomarch in the erratic Karnak list. Sethe has, however, now 
shown (AZ, 42, 132 /.) that the Turin Papyrus contained but six 
kings in this dynasty. I have drawn some of this matter from a 
full reexamination of the materials by Eduard Meyer (Abh. der 
Berl. Akad., Jan., 1908). The dynasty thus reconstructed is as 
follows: 



440 NOTES ON RECENT DISCOVERIES 

ELEVENTH DYNASTY, 2160-2000 B. C. 

(Preceded by Nomarch Intef and possibly a Mentuhotep and 
another Intef.) 

1. Horus Wahenekh-Intef, 50 + X years. 

2. Horus Nakhtneb-Tepnefer-Intef, X years. 

3. Horus Senekhibtowe-Mentuhotep, X years. 

4. Nibhapetre-Mentuhotep, X years. 

5. Nibtowere-Mentuhotep, 2 + X years. 

6. Nibhepetre-Mentuhotep, 46 + X years. 

7. Senekhkere-Mentuhotep, 8 + X years. 

Known length, 160 years. 

Note II. — The two huge colossi on the Island of Argo, above 
the third cataract, do not belong to a Sebekhotep, as all the 
histories state, so far as I know (including my own, p. 212 and 
Fig. 99). These colossi are late Nubian, dating centuries after 
the separation of Nubia and Egypt. The only statue of Sebek- 
hotep on the island is a small life-size sitting figure of the king in 
granite, which I had the privilege of inspecting this year (1907). 
It weighs far less than the Soleb lions of Amenhotep III (now in 
the British Museum), which were transported by a late Nubian 
king from Soleb to Napata at the foot of the fourth cataract 
(BAR, II, 896, note d). In view of the total collapse of the 
kingdom after the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty, there cannot be the 
slightest doubt, that this easily transportable statue of Sebek- 
hotep was carried by some late Nubian king from some lower 
Nubian temple to Argo, just above the third cataract, a feat 
involving far less distance and much less weight than the transport 
of the Soleb lions. It is thus evident that this Sebekhotep did not 
erect the monument on Argo, and we are relieved of the long 
current, but anomalous, conclusion, that a king of the dark age, 
after the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty, accomplished a great ex- 
tension of the kingdom southward. 

Note III. — The siege of Sharuhen which I supposed from the 
worn Berlin squeeze to have lasted six years (BAR, II, 13; BH, p. 
227), has been shown by Sethe's examination of the original to 
have lasted three years. 

Note IV. — The inscription recording an Asiatic war, formerly 
attributed to Thutmose II, has been shown by Sethe's examina- 
tion of the original at Der el-Bahri to belong to Thutmose I. 



NOTES ON RECENT DISCOVERIES 441 

Note V. — The appearance of the Kheta under Thutmose III 
has hitherto always been the earliest occurrence of the Hittites. 
Mr. King of the British Museum has now found evidence in 
Babylonian records of an invasion of Babylonia in 1750 B. c. by 
a people, the reading of whose name coincides with that of the 
Kheta (KSEH, II, 72, 148). 

Note VI. — The Nubian city of Ikhnaton was found by the 
author in 1907 at Sesebi, at the foot of the third cataract, where 
the columns of Seti I were observed to bear palimpsest reliefs. 
Through the reliefs of Seti I, the older records of Ikhnaton can 
still with some difficulty be discerned (See the author's essay in 
the Independent, Jan. 16, 1908), proving the present temple of 
Sesebi to have been built as a temple of Aton by Ikhnaton. 

Note VII. — The inscription in the rear of the first hall at Abu 
Simbel, published as belonging to Ramses II's first year, I have 
found by examination of the original, does not belong to Ramses 
II. Hence the Abu Simbel temple was not begun by Seti I, as 
this inscription led me to think (BAR, III, 495; BH, 415). 

Note VIII. — A scarab of Shabaka, recently offered to the 
Berlin Museum for sale, has now been published by Maspero 
(Annales du Service des Antiquites, VII, 22). It contains an 
evident reference to the Asiatic war, in the inscription which it 
bears. This inscription reads: 

" Shabaka, given life, beloved of Amon more than any king who 
has been since the foundation of the earth, he has slain those 
rebelling against him in South and North, in all countries; the 
Sand-Dwellers (Beduin) revolting against him have fallen by his 
blade. They come of themselves as living captives, each one of 
them urging his brother, because he has done excellent things for 
his ( ?) father, because he so much loved him." 

The mention of the Beduin is of course a reminiscence of 
Shabaka's Asiatic war. The scarab is said to have been found 
in Asia. 

Note IX. — Quite unexpectedly an inscription of Tanutamon's 
eighth year has just turned up at Thebes (Legrain, Annales du 
Service des Antiquites, VII, 226). As he of course numbered his 
years from the beginning of his coregency (663 b. c), he therefore 
held Thebes until 655 b. c. This is the year before Psamtik I 
established his daughter as sacerdotal princess of Thebes, 



442 NOTES ON RECENT DISCOVERIES 

Evidently this establishment of his daughter by Psamtik I fol- 
lowed directly upon Tanutamon's death or retirement, in the 
same year. The fact that the Nubians returned to Thebes after 
its sack by the Assyrians in 661 B. c, and held it for at least six, 
and perhaps seven, years longer, places the close of the Nubian 
supremacy, and their final retirement from Egypt (655-654 B. c), 
in a less ignominious light. 

Note X. — The excavations of Winckler at Boghaz-koi in Asia 
Minor, east of the Kisil-irmak (Halys), five days' journey east 
of Angora, in 1906 and 1907, have shown that this place was 
the seat of Hittite power. In the numerous cuneiform tablets 
which he found there, some in Babylonian and some in Hittite, 
this place is called "Khatti." Here Winckler found the cunei- 
form original of the treaty* of peace between Ramses II and the 
Hittite king Khetasar (cuneiform Hattusil). (See Winckler's re- 
port, OLZ, loth Dec, 1906; MDOG, No. 35.) The recent evi- 
dence of a Hittite invasion of Babylonia about 17.50 b. c. (King, 
KSEH. II, 14S> shows that there was a great expansion of Hittite 
power at just the time when the Hyksos were entering Egypt. 
The Hyksos empire was thus thrown back upon Egypt. Or was 
the Hyksos invasion of Egypt itself Hinite ! 

Note XL — Recently two reliefs now in the Cairo Museum have 
been put forward by W. Max Miiller (Publ. No. 53, Carnegie 
Inst., Washington, PI. I— IT, pp. 5-11) as showing intercourse be- 
tween Egypt and the .Egean, as well as Mesopotamia in the Sixth 
Dynasty'or "about (and 'before') 2.500 B.C." The first relief 
depicts a row of men bearing blocks of tin (dhty) and is dated by 
Miiller on grounds of style in the Sixth Dynasty. The accom- 
panying inscription, however, writes the y in dhty with the two 
oblique strokes, a palseographic peculiarity which never occurs so 
early as the Sixth Dynasty. The sculpture cannot be older than 
the Twelfth Dynasty (2000-1788 b. c.) The other relief (PI. ID 
shows two fragmentary human figures wearing Syrian or Semitic 
costumes, supposed by Miiller to be "Mesopotarnians," and dated 
by him "before 2o00 B.C.," perhaps ''Dynasty 5." The 
relief is a characteristic Empire work not older than the sixteenth 
century b. c. 

Note XII. — Recently the Nubian expedition of Psamtik II has 
been attributed to Psamtik I, and the famous Greek inscription 
left by mercenaries at Abu Simbel has been made the oldest of 
Greek inscriptions, furnishing a "firm basis" for ''Greek epi- 
graphies" (W. Max Miiller, Publ. No. 53, Carnegie Inst., Wash- 



NOTES ON RECENT DISCOVERIES 443 

ington, pp. 22-23, PI. 12-13). This conclusion of Miiller is 
based upon an inscription at Karnak stated by him to record an 
expedition of Psamtik I against Nubia. In this inscription, how- 
ever, as published by Miiller himself, the name of the royal 
author thereof (occurring twice) is Psamtik II J (Nfr-yb-R c and 
Mnh-yb). No expedition of Psamtik I against Nubia is known. 

Note XIII. — Readers who notice the discrepancy between the 
Babylonian dates given above in the Chronological Summary and 
those heretofore current, should note that recent researches have 
disclosed the fact that the First Dynasty of Babylon was im- 
mediately followed by the Third, the Second being a parallel 
dynasty of kings ruling at the mouth of the Euphrates. It is thus 
no longer possible to maintain the early date of Sargon I and 
Naramsin, a fact long ago accepted by Eduard Meyer and 
Lehmann-Haupt. Even so ardent an advocate of extremely early 
Babylonian dates as Hilprecht, has relinquished the early date of 
Sargon I and Naramsin. Indeed, as Eduard Meyer recently re- 
marked to the author, it is highly improbable that we possess a 
single Babylonian document older than 3000 B. c. A highly 
organized, centralized, stable and enduring state in Egypt (the 
Old Kingdom) is over a thousand years older than in Babylonia 
(First Dynasty), for the consolidation of the smaller kingdoms 
into one nation, under the first of successive dynasties, took place 
twelve to thirteen hundred years earlier in Egypt than in Baby- 
lonia (See Ranke., Univ. of Penn. Publ., Series A, Vol. I, part I, 
p. 8, note 1, and for the final results on the parallel character of 
the Second Dynasty, see KSEH, II). 



A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. GENERAL HISTORIES OF ANTIQUITY 

See list in GHBA (G. S. Goodspeed, A History of the Baby- 
lonians and Assyrians, New York, 1906, second edition). It may 
be added that a new edition of Meyer's Geschichte des Altertums 
is in preparation and the first volume containing the early Orient 
is now in press. A new edition of Maspero's smaller history of 
antiquity (Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient) appeared 
in 1904. 

II. EGYPTIAN HISTORY 

Maspero's three volumes already cited among General Histories 
of Antiquity (GHBA), especially full on Egypt (Steindorff, see 
p. 450). 

MG Eduard Merer — Geschichte des Alten Aegvptens. 

Berlin, 1887. 
Wiedemann — Aegyptische Geschichte. Gotha, 1884- 

1885. 
W. M. F. Petrie— History of Egypt. Vol. I-III. 

London. 
Budge — History of Egypt. Vol. I-YIII. London. 
Brugsch — A History of Egypt under the Pharaohs. 

London. 
Bissing — Geschichte Aegyptens. Berlin, 1904. 

BH Breasted— A History of Egypt. New York, 1905. 

NGH . . . Newberry and Garstang — A Short History of Ancient 
Egypt. London, 1904. 
On the later periods: 
Mahaffy — History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic 

Dynasty. London 1899. 
Milne — History of Egypt under Roman Rule. London, 

1898. 
Stanley Lane-Poole — History of Egypt in the Middle 
Ages. London, 1901. (These three forming vol- 
umes IY-VI in Petrie's series.) 

444 



A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 445 

III. TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS 

A. TEXTS 

It would be impossible in the limits here imposed to give even 
a selected list of the great number of Egyptian texts already pub- 
lished. The science is now engaged upon the great task of 
replacing the old and inaccurate, but once standard, editions of 
the Egyptian monuments, by new and final standard publications, 
meeting all the modern requirements of accuracy and detail. 
The largest of the old publications still in use are the following 
three large folios of plates: 

LD Lepsius — Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien. 

Abth., I-XIL Berlin, 1849-1858. 
CM Champollion — Monuments de l'Egypte et de la Nubie. 

Vol. I-IV. Paris, 1835-1845. 
RM Rosellini — Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia. Vol. 

I-III. Pisa, 1834. 
The most important monuments are now being placed at the 
disposal of students in a convenient and handy form combining 
accuracy, perspicuity and cheapness in Urkunden des aegypti- 
schen Altertums, ed. Steindorff. Leipzig, 1903 ff. 

B. TRANSLATIONS 

Many monuments have been translated in special publications 
or in the current journals of the science. The translations of 
religious texts are noted below (V. Religion), and those in litera- 
ture (belles lettres) in VI. A limited selection of translated texts 
will be found in Records of the Past. The historical documents 
in English, complete from the earliest times to the Persian con- 
quest, will be found in: 

BAR Breasted — Ancient Records of Egypt. Vol. I-V. 

Chicago, 1906-1907. 

The references to BAR in this history refer to the paragraphs, 
not to the pages. Full information on the bibliography of each 
monument will be found therein, so that further references herein 
can be dispensed with. 

IV. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, EXPLORATION, ETC. 

Contemporary descriptions of ancient Egypt are chiefly Herodo- 
tus and Strabo. The condition of the monuments in the Middle 



446 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ages is scantily indicated in the Arab geographers and historians, 
particularly: 

Abd el-Latif — Relation de l'Egypte par Abd al-Latif 

. . . traduit . . . par Silvestre de Sacy. Paris, 1810. 
El-Idrisi — Description de l'Afrique. ed. Dozy et De 

Goeje. Leyden, 1866. 
— Ge*ographie d'Idrisi. Traduite . . . par P. Amadee 

Jaubert. Paris, 1836-1840. 
Ibn Dukmak — Description of Egypt (in Arabic) Bulak 

Press, A. H. 1309. 
Makrizi — Description Historique et Topographique de 

l'Egypte traduit par P. Casanova (in M£moires . . . 

de l'lnstitut francais . . . du Caire. III. Cairo, 

1906). 

The monuments of the Nile valley were first disclosed to Europe 
in published form in the great "Description de l'Egypte," pub- 
lished by the members of Napoleon's Egvptian expedition (Plates 
Vol. I-XI; Texte, Vol. I-XXVI. Paris, 1820-1830). The 
gradual exploration of the country, and the discoveries among the 
monuments in modern times, may be traced in the following 
works: 

J. Lobo — A Short Relation of the River Nile. London, 

1669. 
Wansleben — The Present State of Egypt or a New Re- 
lation of a Late Voyage into that Kingdom, per- 
formed in the years 1672 and 1673. London, 1678. 
Leach — Travels on the Nile. London, 1742. 
Pococke — World Displayed, or a Curious Collection of 

Voyages and Travels. Vol. XII. London, 1774. 
— Voyages de Richard Pococke. Vol. I-VI. Neuf- 

chatel, 1772. 
— A Description of the East. London, 1743. 
Norden— Travels in Egypt and Nubia (1737-1738), 
translated and enlarged by Dr. Peter Templeman. 
Vol. I-II. London, 1757. 
Bruce — Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the 
Years 1768-1773. Vol. I-VII. London and Edin- 
burgh, 1813. 
W. G. Browne — Travels in Africa, Egvpt and Syria, 

1792-179S. London, 1806. 
Denon — Travels in Africa. London, 1803. 
Legh — Narrative of a Journey in Egypt and the Country 

Beyond the Cataracts. London, 1816. 
Burckhardt — Travels in Nubia. London, 1819. 



- A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 447 

Belzoni — Narrative of Operations and Discoveries . . . 

in Egypt and Nubia. London, 1820. 
Cailliaud— Voyage a Meroe . . . 1819-1822. Paris, 

1826-1828. 
Drovetti — Voyage a l'Oasis de Dakel. Paris, 1821. 
Waddington and Hanbury — Journal of a Visit to Some 

Parts of Ethiopia. London, 1822. 
Champollion — Lettre a. M. Dacier, relative a l'alphabet 

des hieroglyphes. Paris, 1822. (Contains an account 

of the decipherment of the hieroglyphic by him.) 
Lettres ecrites d'Egypte et de Nubie. Paris, 1833. 
Notices descriptives (Text of MonumenTs de 
r Egypt). Vol. I-II. Paris, 1844. 
Hartleben — Champollion, sein Leben und sein Werk. 

Vol. I-II. Berlin, 1906. 
Prudhoe — Extracts from Private Memoranda kept by 

Lord Prudhoe on a Journey from Cairo to Sennaar in 

1829. Journal Royal Geogr. Soc, V., 1835. 
Wilkinson — Topography of Thebes and General View 

of Egypt. London, 1835. 
Wilkinson — Modern Egypt and Thebes. Vol. I-II. 

London, 1843. 
Hoskins — Travels in Ethiopia. London, 1835. 
D'Athanasi — Researches and Discoveries in Upper 

Egypt. London, 1836. 
Russegger — Reisen in Europa, Asien und Afrika, 1835 

bis 1841. Vol. I-IIL Stuttgart, 1841, (Vol. II is on 

the Nile valley). 
Ferlini — Cenno sugli Scavi Operati nella Nubia e 

Catalogo degli Oggetti Ritrovati. Bologna, 1837. 
Ferlini — Relation Historique des Fouilles Operees dans 

la Nubie. Rome, 1838. 
Holroyd — Notes on a Journey to Kordofan in 1836- 

1837. London, 1839. 
L'Hote— Lettres ecrites d'Egypte en 1838-1839. Paris, 

1840. 
Lepsius — Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the 

Peninsula of Sinai in the Years 1842-1845. London, 

1852. Second ed., 1853. 
Lepsius — Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sinai. 

Translated by J. B. Horner. London, 1853. 

Text (Vol. I- VI), accompanying the Denkmaeler 

aus Aegypten und Nubien. 
Brugsch — Die Geographie des alten Aegypten. Leip- 
zig, 1857. 



448 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Brugsch — Reiseberichte aus Aegypten. Leipzig, 1855. 
Brugsch — Reise nach der grossen Oase el-Khargeh. 

Leipzig, 1878. 
Brugsch — Dictionnaire geographique. Leipzig, 1879. 
Mariette — Description des fouilles executees en Egypte, 

en Nubie, et au Soudan, 1850-1854. Paris, 1863- 

1867. 
Speke — Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the 

Nile. London and Edinburgh, 1864. 

With this compare the discovery of higher sources 
behind the equatorial lakes by 
Baumann — Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle, 1891- 

1893. Berlin, 1894. 
Baker, Sir S. — Albert N'vanza and the Great Basin of 

the Nile. Vol. I-II. London, 1866, 1872. 
Baker, Sir S. — The Nile Tributaries of Abysinia. 

London, 1867. 
Dillmann — Ueber die Anfaenge des Axumitischen 

Reichs. Berlin, 1879. 
Duemichen — Geographical Introduction in Meyer, 

Geschichte des Alten Aegyptens. Berlin, 1887. 
Ebers — Egypt, Descriptive, Historical, Picturesque. 

London/ 1881. 
Hilmy, Prince Ibrahim — Bibliography of Egypt and the 

Soudan. Vol. I-II. London, 1886. 
Brown, Maj. R. H. — The Fayum and Lake Moeris. 

London, 1892. 
Steindorff — Durch die Libysche Wueste zur Amonsoase. 

Leipzig, 1904. 
Gleichen — The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Vol. I-II. 

London, 1905. 
Borchardt — Nilhoehe und Nilstandsmarken. Abhand- 

lungen der Kgl. Preuss. Akad., 1905. 
Lyons — The Physiography of the River Nile and its 

Basin. London, 1906. 
Petrie — Ten Years Digging in Egypt. London, 1893. 
Petrie — Methods and Aims in Archaeology. London, 

1901. 
Budge— The Egyptian Sudan, Vol. I-II. London, 

1907. Egypt Exploration Fund— Memoirs, 28 vols. 

— Archaeological Survey, 16 vols. — Graeco-Roman 

Branch, 8 vols. — Special Publications, 5 vols. N. B. 

A survey of all discoveries in Egypt each year, be- 
ginning 1892, is furnished by the Annual Arch- 
aeological Reports, edited by F. LI. Griffith. 



A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 449 

See also the series of volumes by 

Petrie, and his Egyptian Research Account; also those 
of the 

Deutsche Orientgesellschaft, and those of 

Reisner — University of California Expedition, now about 
to appear; and 

Breasted — The Temples of Lower Nubia. Chicago, 
1906. University of Chicago Expedition. 

The Monuments of Upper Nubia and the Sudan. Chi- 
cago, 1908. University of Chicago Expedition. 

Memoires publies par les Membres de la Mission 
archeologique francaise au Caire. From 1881 on. 
Continued as Memoires publies pas les Membres de 
l'lnstitut Francais d'Archeologie orientale du Caire. 
Cairo. 

A visit to all the chief monuments of Egypt with maps, 
plans of all great temples, and one hundred stereo- 
graphic views accompanied by popular explanations 
and discussions: 

Breasted — Egypt Through the Stereoscope. A Journey 
Through the Land of the Pharaohs. New York, 1905. 

V. RELIGION 

The principal texts are: 

Maspero — Les Inscriptions des Pyramides de Saqqarah. 
Paris, 1894 (Reprint from Recueil de Travaux. Vols. 
III-V, VII-XII, XIV. 

Naville — Das aegyptische Totenbuch der 18-20 Dy- 
nastic Berlin, 1886. 

Budge— The Book of the Dead. Vol. I-III. London, 
1898. 

Budge — The Hieratic Papyrus of Nesiamsu. West- 
minster, 1891. 

Lepsius — iElteste Texte des Totenbuches. Berlin, 
1867. 

Lepsius — Das Totenbuch der Aegypter nach dem 
hieroglyphischen Papyrus in Turin . . . Leipzig, 
1842. 

Lefebure — Hypogees royaux (Mem. de la Mission 
archeolog. francaise, II— III, 1-2). 

Schack — Das Zweiwegebuch. 

von Bergmann — Das Buch vom Durchwandeln der 
Ewigkeit. Vienna, 1877. 

Jequier — Livre de ce qu'il y a dans l'Hades. Paris, 
1894. 



450 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

There are many more mortuary and magical texts not 

included above. 
The treatises are: 

Erman — A Handbook of Egyptian Religion. Trans- 
lated by A. S. Griffith. London, 1907. 
Steindorff — The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians. 

New York and London, 1905. 
Wiedemann — Die Religion der alten Aegypter. Muen- 

ster, 1890 (also to be had in English). 
Maspero — Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie 

egyptiennes. Vol. I-III. Paris, 1893-98. 
Lange — Contribution on Egyptian religion in Saussaye's 

Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte. 
Budge — Gods of the Egyptians. Vol. I— II. London, 

1902. 
The chief translations are: 
Maspero — Translation of the Pyramid Texts in above 

edition of same. 
Renouf — Book of the Dead in Life Work of the Late 

Sir Peter Le Page Renouf, Vol. IV. Paris, 1907. 

Conclusion by Xaville. 
Budge— The Book of the Dead. Vol. I-III. London, 

1898. 

VI. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS; ART AND 
LITERATURE 

Erman — Life in Ancient Egypt. Translated bv H. M. 
Tirard. London, 1895. 

Wilkinson — Manners and Customs of the Ancient 
Egyptians. Vol. I-III. London, 1885. Now out 
of date, but an invaluable treasury of materials. 

Steindorff — Die Bluetezeit des Pharaonenreichs. Biele- 
feld, 1900. 

Perrot & Chipiez — History of Ancient Art. I. Egypt. 

Maspero — Egyptian Archaeology. 

Spiegelberg — Geschichte der Aegyptischen Kunst. 
Leipzig, 1903. 

Borchardt — Die Aegvptische Pflanzensaule. Berlin, 
1897. 

von Bissing — Denkmaeler aegyptischer Sculptur. Mun- 
chen, 1905-1907 (not yet complete). 

Erman — General Sketch of Egyptian literature proper. 
ELAE. Chapter XV. 

Griffith — Best series of translations in English in 



A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 451 

Library of the World's Best Literature, edited by C. 
D. Warner. 

Maspero — Les Contes populaires de L'Egypte ancienne, 
3rd ed. Paris, 1905. 

Petrie — Egyptian Tales. London. (After Griffith and 
Maspero.) 

Erman & Krebs — Aus den Papyrus der Koniglichen 
Museen. Berlin, 1899. 

Miiller — Die Liebespoesie der alten Aegypter. Leip- 
zig, 1899. 

Demotic tales: 

Griffith — Stories of the High Priests of Memphis. Lon- 
don, 1900. 

Krall— in KFB and WZKM, XVII. 

VII. EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS AND THE BIBLE 

Eduard Meyer — Der Moses-Sage und die Leviten. 

Sitzungsber. Berlin. Akad., 1905, 640. 
Eduard Meyer — Die Israeliten und Ihre Nachbar- 

staemme. 
Steindorff — In Recent Research in Bible Lands, ed. 

Hilprecht. Philadelphia, 1906. 
Griffith — In Authority and Archaeology, ed. Hogarth. 

New York, 1899. " 
Miiller — Asien und Europa nach altaegyptischen Denk- 

maelern. Leipzig, 1893. 
Spiegelberg — Aegyptische Randglossen zum Alten 

Testament. Strassburg, 1904. 
Spiegelberg — Aufenhalt Israels in Aegypten. Strass- 
burg, 1904. 

VIII. COLLECTIONS OF ESSAYS, SERIES, 
JOURNALS, ETC. 

Zeitschrift fiir Aegyptische Sprache und Altertums- 

kunde, ed. by Erman & Steindorff. Leipzig. 
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde 

Aegyptens, ed. by Sethe. Leipzig. 
Recueil de Travaux relatifs a, la Philologie et a l'Ar- 

cheologie egyptiennes et assyriennes, ed. Maspero. 

Paris. Vol. I, 1870; Vols. II ff., 1880 ff. 
Revue egyptologique, ed. by Revillout. Paris, 1880 ff. 
Sphinx, ed. Ernst Andersson, Upsala (formerly K. 

Piehl). From 1897 on. 



452 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Melanges d'archeologie egyptienne et assyrienne. 

Paris, 1872-1878. 
Melanges egyptologiques, ed. Chabas. Chalon-sur- 

Saone, 1862-1873. 
L'Egyptologie, ed. Chabas. Paris, 1876-1878. 
Bulletin de l'institut francais d'archeologie orientale au 

Caire. 
Annales du Sen-ice des Antiquites de l'Egypte. Cairo, 

1900 ff. 
Bibliotheque egyptologique, ed. Maspero. Vol. I-XII. 

Paris, 1893 ff. 
Maspero — Etudes egyptiennes. Paris, 1886 ff. 
Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. 

London. From 1879 on. 
Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. 

Ten vols. only. 1872 on. 
American Journal of Semitic Languages, ed. Harper. 

Chicago. (Continuing Hebraica.) 

IX. CHRONOLOGY 

Eduard Meyer — Aegvptische Chronologic Abhandl. 
der Berl. Akad., 1904. 

Ginzel — Handbuch der Mathematischen und Techni- 
schen Chronologic Vol. I. Zeitrechnung der Babv- 
lonier, Aegvpter, Mohammedaner, Perser, etc. Leip- 
zig, 1906. 

Lehmann — Zwei Hauptprobleme der altorientalischen 
Chronologic Berlin, 1898. 

King — Studies in Eastern History: Chronicles Concern- 
ing earlv Babylonian Kings. Vol. I— II. London, 
1907. 

Niebuhr — Die Chronologie der Geschichte Israels, 
Aegyptens, Babvloniens und Assyriens. Leipzig. 
1896. 

Breasted— BAR, I, 38-75. 

X. ABBREVIATIONS 

AS Annales du Service. 

AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages. 

AL Winckler, Amarna Letters. 

BAR .... Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt. 
BFLM. .Brown, Favum and Lake Moeris. 
BH Breasted, A History of Egypt. 



A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 453 

BIHC . . . Birch, Inscriptions in the Hieratic Character. 

BI Bulletin de l'lnstitut. 

BK Breasted, Battle of Kadesh. 

BT Brugsch, Thesaurus. 

BTLN . . Breasted, Temples of Lower Nubia. 

CC Catalogue of Cairo Museum. 

DG Duemichen, Grabpalast. 

EA Erman, Aegypten u. aegypt. Leben. 

EG " Gesprach eines Lebensmiiden. 

ELAE. . . " Life in Ancient Egypt. 

EHEL. . " Handbook of Egyptian Religion. 

FE Festschrift fur Ebers. 

GHBA. .Goodspeed, History of the Babylonians and Assyrians. 

GIM Gardiner, Inscription of Mes (SU, IV). 

G JL .... Gautier- Jequier, Fouilles de Licht. 

GKP. . . .Griffith, Kahun Papyri. 

GLWBL " Library of World's Best Literature. 

GMBK. .Garstang, Mahasna and Bet Khallaf. 

GTD. ... " Tombs of the Third Dynasty. 

KFB. . . .Krall, Festgaben fur Budinger, Innsbruck, 1898. 

XSEH . . . King, Studies in Eastern History, I— II. 

XSGW . . Berichte der Phil.-hist. Classe der Konigl. Sachs. Gesell. 

der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. 

LD Lepsius, Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien. 

MA Mariette, Adydos. 

MAAG . . Meyer, Das erste Auftreten der Arier in der Gesch. 

Sitzungsber. der Berl. Akad., 1908 (9. Jan.). 

MC Meyer, Aegyptische Chronologic 

MCd'AB Mariette, Cat. gen. d'Abydos. 

MCM . . . de Morgan, Catalogue des Monuments. 

MCP. . . .Maspero, Contes populaires. 

MD de Morgan, Fouilles a Dahchour. 

MDOG. .Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orientgesellschaft. 

MG Meyer, Gesch. des alten Aegyptens. 

ML Miiller, Liebespoesie. 

MM Mariette, Les Mastabas. 

MMD... " Monuments diverse. 

MMR. . .Maspero, Momies royales. 

MNC . . .Meyer, Nachtrag zur aeg. chron. Abh. der Berl. Akad., 

1908. 
MSPER.Mitth. aus d. Samml. d. Pap. Erzherzog Rainer. 

NA Naville, Ahnas el-Medineh. 

NGH . . . Newberry-Garstang, History of Egypt. 

OLZ .... Orientalistische Literaturzeitung. 

PA Papyrus Anastasi (Brit. Mus. Select Papyri). 



454 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

PB Papyrus de Boulaq. 

PCH. . . .Perrot-Chipiez, History of Art. 
PEFQS.. Palestine Expl. Fund, Quart. Statement. 

PG Petrie, Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. 

PHE. ... " History of Egypt. 

PI " Illahun. 

PKGH.. " Kahun, Gurob & Hawara. 

PKM . . . Erman-Krebs, Papyrus des Konigl. Museums. 

PP Papyrus Prisse. 

PPS Petrie, Cat. of Egyptian Antiquities found in the 

Peninsula of Sinai. 

PS Petrie, Season in Egypt. 

PSall. ...Papyrus Sallier. 
PScar. . .Petrie, Scarabs. 
PSBA. . .Proceedings of the Soc. of Bib. Arch. 

PT Petrie, Tanis. 

PET.... " Egyptian Tales. 

PW Papyrus Westcar, ed. Erman. 

QH Quibell, Hieraconpolis. 

RIH. . . . de Rouge, Inscr. hierogl. 

Rec Recueil de Travaux, ed. Maspero. 

SB A Sitzungsberichte d. Berlin. Akad. 

SEI Sharpe, Egyptian Inscriptions. 

SS Spiegelberg, Studien und Materialien. 

TP Turin Papyrus of Kings. 

WAL Winckler, Amarna Letters. 

WRS. . . .Weill, Recueil des Inscr. Egypt, du Sinai. 

WUAG.. Winckler, Untersuchungen zur altorientalischen Ge» 

schichte. 
WZKM.. Wiener Zeitschr. f. d. Kunde d. Morgenl. 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 

Note. For a full statement of the system of transliteration 
adopted, the reader is referred to the preface of BAR, I., pp. 
xiv. ff. Hieroglyphic writing does not indicate vowels. They 
must be supplied by the modern scholar more or less arbitrarily 
in most cases, even the 'place of the vowel among the consonants 
being often uncertain. The vowels thus supplied are commonly 
given the continental or Italian sounds and no vowels are silent. 
"Kh" indicates a single sound, a deep guttural ch as in the 
Scotch loch or German nach. W and Y are always consonantal, 
and are pronounced as in English. The latter statement is for 
practical purposes also true of all the remaining consonants. 
The primary accent is indicated by '; the secondary, if any, by/. 
The letter after a name indicates its character: e.g., c = city; 
d, district; g, god or goddess; k, king; n, noble; o, officer; p, 
people; q, queen; r, river; t, town. M. K. = Middle Kingdom; 
O. K. = Old Kingdom; Emp. = Empire; Rest. = Restoration. 



A'-ba, 392 

A-bab'-deh, p, 7 

Ab-sha', 158 

Abd-a-shir'-ta, n, 282, 298 

Abd-khi'-ba, n, 285, 297 

Abram, 363 

Abu Sim'-bel, 312, 319, 407; 
Greek inscription at, 407 

A-bu-sir', 115 

Abydos, 43, 46, 50, 148, 300, 
301, 302 

Abyssinia, 4, 8, 383 

Achae'ans, 329 

Aegean, earliest commerce with, 
50; inM. K., 159; in Emp., 
211, 234, 235, 253, 325 

Ae-gi'-na, 413 

Aeolians, 413 

Africa, 3, 4, 7, 29; earliest ex- 
ploration of, 124 ff.; circum- 
navigation of, 407 



Agriculture, 9-10, 88; earliest, 

32 
Ah-mo'-se I., k, 186-193, 205 f. 
Ahmose II. = A-ma'-sis, q. v. 
Ahmose, q, 208, 214 
Ahmose (son of Ebana), n, 187, 

188 
A-khet-a'-ton, c (see also Am- 

arna), 270-272, 285, 286, 

287, 288 
Akh-tho'-es, k, 134 
Alabastron'polis, c, 293 
A'-la-sa, or Alasia, see Cyprus. 
A-lep'-po, 232, 239, 303, 305 
Al-ta'-qu, c, 375 
A'-ma-da, 247 
A-mar'-na, t (see also Akheta- 

ton), 270 
Amarna Letters, 250, 288 
A-ma'-sis, k, 411-18 
A-men-ar'-dis, q, 371, 377, 381 



455 



456 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



A'-men-em-hab', n, 233, 237 
A'-men-em-het' I., k, 137 f., 

139 f., 152 f., 164, 167 
Amenemhet II., k, 154, 155 
Amenemhet III., k, 160-163, 

169, 170 
Amenemhet IV., k, 170 
A-men-ho'-tep I., k, 205, 207 f ., 

258, 359 
Amenhotep II., k, 241, 245-7, 

253 
Amenhotep III., 248-263, 280, 

331 
Amenhotep IV., see Ikhna- 

ton. 
Amenhotep, son of Ha'pu, 255 
Amenhotep (High Priest of 

Amon), 349 
A-me-ni', n, 154 
A-men-me-ses', k, 332 
Ammon, 375, 408 
Amon and Amon-Re, g, 203, 

228, 267, 268 f., 286 f., 288, 

304, 322 f., 337, 341-3, 352 f.; 

in Syria, 230, 337, 352 f.; in 

Nubia, 367 ff. 
Amon, High Priest of, 202 f., 

268, 322 f., 342, 348 ff., 352, 

362, 364, 377, 388; as King, 

350 ff., 355 f., 357-361 
Amor and Amorites, 282, 298, 

317, 327, 335, 337, 351 
A'-nath, g, 318, 324 
Animal worship, 61 f., 324, 397 
Annals (see also Palermo 

Stone), 47, 238 
An'-shan, 416 
A-nu'-bis, g, 48 
A'-pis, g, 48, 397 
A-po'phis, k, 176, 179, 183, 184, 

185 
Ap'-ri-es, k, 408-412 
Arabia, 29, 210, 387 
Arabian Desert, 7 
A^rai'-na, c, 239 



Aramaeans, 210, 284; in Egypt, 
398 

Arch, 94 

Architecture, earliest, 44-45; 
in O. K., 99-100; in M. K, 
165; in Emp., 218 f., 255-9, 
339; in Rest. 394 

Armenians, 281 

Army, 82, 144 f., 193-5, 200, 
202, 224, 252, 318 f., 389 f., 
410 f., 414 

Ar'-ra-pa-khi'-tis, c, 239 

Ar-si'noe, 160, 162 

Art, earliest, 30-32; proto-dy- 
nastic, 42-43; in O. K., 88- 
100; in M. K., 165 f.; in 
hither Asia, 211 f.; in Emp., 
255-261, 278 f., 300, 301, 
319 f., 338; in Rest., 393 f. 

Ar-ta'-ta-ma, k, 247, 251 

Ar'-vad, c, 211, 230, 231, 303, 
310, 335, 409 

Aryans, in Mitanni, 212. 

Ash'-dod, 402 

A-shur-ban'-i-pal, k, 380-382, 
387 f. 

Asia, 3, 29 

Asia Minor, 4, 89, 159, 211, 212, 
280 f ., 233, 235, 304, 334, 343, 
388 

As'-ka^lon,c, 285, 328, 331, 375, 
404 

Asklep'ias, 105 

Assuan', c, 7, 125 

Assyria and Assyrians, 177, 
229, 249, 250, 251, 368 f., 
402 f.; Western empire of, 
373 ff., 375-388, 402; fall of, 
404, 406 

As-tar'-te, g, 318, 324 

Astronomy, 93 

As-ty'-a-ges, 416 

At-ba'-ra, r, 4 

Athens, 414 

A-thrib'-is, c, 380, 396 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



457 



Atlantic, 3 

A'-ton, g, 267 ff., 299; cities of, 

269 f. 
A-tum', 58, 59 
Ava'ris, c, 176, 177, 178, 179, 

180, 185, 186, 187 
A'-yan, d, 88 
A-zi'-ru, 282, 283, 284, 298 

Baal, g, 210; in Egypt, 318, 

324 
Baal, k, 379 
Babylonia, Old, 33, 46, 149, 

159, 212, 229, 248, 249, 250, 

262, 280, 281, 317, 375, 376, 

387, 398, 404; gifts from, 233 
Babylonia, New, 404, 406-416 
Ba'-hr Yu'-suf, r, 5, 6 
Bast, g, 60 
Beduin, 50, 121, 159, 182, 213, 

283, 284, 297, 316, 337, 375 
Be'-ga, p, 29 
Bek, o, 270, 278 
Bek-et-a'-ton, 270 
Ben-A'nath, 318 
Ben-'O'zen, n, 318 
Berber, 329 
Berut', c, 284, 303 
Beth-She'an, c, 351 
Bet Khallaf, d, 105 
Bi-khu'-ru, n, 283 
Bint-A'nath, 318 
Blemm'-yes, p, 383 
Blue Nile, 4, 8, 9 
Boats, see ships 
Boo/-cho-ris, k, 371 f., 374 
Bo-ghaz-Ko'-i, t, 281 
Book of the Dead, 150, 203 f., 

391 
Brick, 89-90; earliest, 31 
Bronze, 394 
Bu-bast'-is, c, 60, 110, 165, 177, 

184, 363, 364; kings at, 360- 

366, 370 
Bur-ra-bur'-yash, k, 280 



Bu-sir'-is, 61 
Bu'-to, g, 36, 41 
Buto, c, 34, 36, 46, 396 
Bu-yu-wa'-wa, 360 
Byblos, c, 158, 211, 245, 263, 
282, 283 f., 351, 352 

Ca-la-syr'-i-es, 390 
Calendar, 15, 25, 35-36, 46 
Cam-by'-ses, 247, 383, 418 
Canaanites, 210, 331, 362 
Canal, 5, 9, 11; through first 

cataract, 122, 155 f., 209; 

from Nile to Red Sea, 159, 

218, 407 
Cappado'cia, 159 
Car'-che-mish, c, 232, 303, 335; 

battle of, 406 
Carians, 388, 389, 399 
Carmel, m, 224 
Cataract, 4-5, 8-9, 122 
Cedar, 90, 247, 338, 352 
Chariot, 195 
Chi'-os, 413 
Chronology, 24-26, 46 
Cilicia, 89, 304 
Cim-mer'-i-ans, p, 387, 388 
City-state, 33, 210 
Cla-zo-me'-nae, 413 
Climate, 8, 10-11 
Cni'-dus, 413 
Cnos'-sos, 179, 253 
Column & Colonnade, 99-100, 

257, 394 
Commerce and Trade, 91-92; 

earliest, 33; in O. K, 83, 106, 

114, 122, 127; in M. K, 159; 

in Emp., 210 f., 253 f.; in 

Rest., 398 f., 407 
Copper, 31, 32, 42, 89, 92, 

106, 246, 251, 338; as money, 

163 
Cop'-tos, 31, 127, 154 f., 237 
Court, royal, 74 f . 
Costume, 86-87; earliest, 30 f. 



458 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Courts of justice, 79 f., 143, 

195, 198 f., 344 
Crete, 179, 235, 253, 254, 333 
Crocodilo'polis, c, 162 
Croesus, k, 416 
Crown, 34, 36, 41 
Cy-ax'-a-res, k, 404, 406 
Cyprus, 211, 234. 235, 239, 250, 

251, 253, 298, 317, 335, 354, 

409, 415 
Cy-re'-ne, c, 411, 413 
Cyrus, 416 f. 

Dah-shur', t, 106, 107 

Damascus, 227, 263 

Da-mi-ette', c, 6 

Dan-a'-oi, p, 334 

Daph'-nae, c, 389, 414 

Darda'nians, 304 

David, 360 

Dead, beliefs regarding, 36, 65- 
73, 149-51, 203 f. 

Decadence, 347-388; sketch 
of, 21-22; sources, 27-28 

De'du, c, 61 

Delphians, 413 

Delta, 5-6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 33, 
34, 35, 38, 121, 236, 237, 
311, 314, 329 f., 333, 336, 
350, 360 ft\, 365, 379 ft\, 394, 
398, 407 

De-mot'-ic, 395 

Den'-de-reh, c, 37, 60, 110 

Den'-yen, p, 334 

Der el-Bah'ri, d, 216, 217 

Desert, 3, 4, 6-7, 11-12 

De-suk', t, 110 

Dog River, 303, 379 

Don'-go-la Province, 208 f . 

Dor, c, 351, 352 

Dorians, 413 

Drama, earliest, 148, 169 

Drawing, 97-98, 261 

Dush-rat'-ta, k, 251, 280 f. 

Dynasties, 15 



Ed'-fu, 5, 40, 60, 152 

E'-dom, 374, 375 

Edomite, 316 

Education, 92-94, 395 

Egypt, limits of, 4-8, 11; soil 

of, 5-6, 8-9; shape of, 8 

climate, 8; wealth of, 9-10; 

ruins of, 12; population, 

83 
Egypt, Lower (see also Delta), 

34 ? 35, 49, 379, 381 
Egypt, Upper, 36-39, 41, 49, 78- 

79, 379, 380 
Egyptians, race of, 29 f . ; earli- 
est, 29-34 
Egyptian Language, origin, 29 
Eighteenth Dynasty, 186-9, 

205 f., 207-289; date of, 24- 

25 
Eighth Dynasty, 133-4 
E-ke'-reth, c, 303 
Ek'-wesh, p, 329 
E'-lam, 387 
E-le-phan-ti'-ne, c, 5, 33, 92, 

121, 124, 125, 126, 197, 389 
Eleventh Dynasty, 135-7; date 

of, 25 
E-leu'-the-ros, r, 231 
E-li'-a-kim, k, 405 
El Kab', c, 36, 41, 46, 157, 186 f ., 

187, 189 
Empire, 186-344; sketch of, 

19-21, 24; sources for, 27 
E'-nekh-nes-Me-ri-re', q, 125 
En-en'-khet, n, 127 
En'-khu, n, 182 
E'-reth, c, 337 
E-sar-had'-don, k, 378-380 
Es-dra-e'-lon, d, 224, 225, 226, 

298, 351, 404 
Es'-neh, 189 
Ethiopia, 383, 390 
Ethiopian period, sketch of, 

22, 24 
E-trus'-cans, p, 329 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



459 



Euphrates, r, 3, 208, 209,232, 
248; northern frontier of 
Egypt, 213, 233, 234, 405 f. 

Europe, 4, 7 

European civilization, rise of, 
3 L, 7, 12, 13, 14, 50, 159, 
253, 329 f ., 337 f ., 339 

Eusebius, 15 

Extradition, 251 

E'-ye, n, and k, 264, 289 

Ezekiel, 415 

Family, 83-84 
Fayum', d, 6, 161 f., 170 
Fifth dynasty, 112-116, 117 
First dynasty, 40-51, 300; 

length and date of, 25 
Flax, 91 
Flint, 32 

Fo-a-khir', Wady, 89 
Fourth dynasty, 107-112 
Fourteenth dynasty, 182 
Furniture, 42-44, 85, 86, 259; 

earliest, 31 
Future life, 36, 65-73, 149-51, 

203 f. 

Galilee, 283, 298, 363 

Gal'-la, p, 29 

Ga'-za, c, 404 

Ge-be-len', 182 

Gebel Ze-ba'-ra, 300 

Gem-A'-ton, 268, 270, 288 

Ge'-zer, t, 158, 285, 331, 362 

Gi-lu-khi'-pa, q, 251 

Gi'zeh, t, 108, 110, 111 

Glass, 90, 259; earliest, 31, 

42 
God, 265 fi\; local, 33 
Gold, 42, 89, 92, 122, 142, 154, 

155, 157, 197, 235, 245, 250, 

251, 254, 301, 340, 405 
Governor of the South, 118-19, 

120, 121, 124, 142 
Greece, 211, 253 



Greeks, 399; influence of Egypt 
on, 399-402; in Egypt, 389, 
398, 399, 400, 410 f., 412- 
415 

Gy'-ges, k, 388 

Hal-i-car-nas'-sus, 413 
Ha'-math, c, 280 
Ham-ma-mat', 88, 136 f., 142, 

153, 348, 377; opening of, 

115 
Har-khuf', n, 124, 125, 126 
Harmhab', k, 287, 289, 293-7 
Ha-ti'-ba, q, 354 
Hat-sho', c, 336 
Hattusil', k, 311 
Hauran', 298 
Hathor, g, 48, 60, 64 
Hatnub', 88, 110, 120 
Hat-shep'-sut, q, 214 f., 216- 

222 
Hatshepsut-Mer-et-re', q, 241 
Hebrews (see also Israel), 182, 

284, 351, 366 
Hebrew language in Egypt, 

318 
Heliopolis, 46, 57, 59, 60, 64, 

110, 112, 196, 203, 267, 268, 

300 
Hel-le'-ni-um, 413 
He'-nu, n, 136 
Heracleopolitans, 17, 23, 134- 

136; duration of, 25 
Heracleo'polis, 46, 360; late 

principality of, 360, 361, 364 
Herds, 88 
Her-mon'-this, 135 
Hermo'polis, 60, 368 
Her-mo-ty'-bi-es, 390 
Hezeki'ah, 375 
Hieracon'polis, 36, 43, 45, 46, 

48, 49 
Hierat'ic, writing, 92-93, 395 
Hieroglyphic (see also Writing), 

397 



460 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Hittites, in M. K., 159; in 
Emp, 212, 233, 239, 240, 
262 f., 280, 283, 298, 299, 
303-312, 317, 327 f., 331, 
335, 337, 351 
Hoph-ra", k, 408 
Hor, n, 389 

Horse, 184, 195, 229, 317 
Horus, g, 36, 48, 49, 59, 60 
Horus (title), 40-41, 112 
House, 85, 87; earliest, 31 
Hri-hor', k, 352, 355, 357 
Hunting, earliest, 32, 42; roy- 
al, 262 
Hyk'-sos, 18-19, 23, 175-188, 
240 

Iax'.vas, k, 183 

I-ka'-thi, c, 246 

I'-kher-nof'-ret, n, 157 

Ikh-na'ton, k, 250, 264-288, 
293; meaning of, 269 

Im-ho'tep, n, 81, 100, 104, 396 

I-mou'-thes, see Imhotep. 

Indian Ocean, 127 

Indo-Germanic people first en- 
ter Asia Minor, 28 p, 334 

Industries, 88-92, 166, 205; 
earliest, 30-33 

I-nen'-i, n, 213 

In'tef (nomarch), 135 

Intefs, k, 136, 184 

Inundation, 8-10 

Ionians, 388, 389 

Ipuwer 7 , 168 

Iran, 212 

Trem, 238 

Iron, 89, 122 

Irrigation, 8-9, 11, 49, 161 f. 

Ir'thet, 123, 126 

Isaiah, 372 f , 374, 376 f . 

I-se'-si, k, 115 

Ish'-tar, g, 263 

I'-sis, g, 58, 60 

Isis, q, 214, 396 



Israel, 149, 181 f., 328 f., 331, 

351,360,365,373 
I-ta'-ka-ma, k, 282 
Ith-to'-we, c, 139, 143 

Jacob-her (or Jacob-el), 181, 

183 
Je-ho'-a-haz, k, 405 
Je-hoi'-a-chin, k, 408 
Je-hoi'-a-kim, k, 405 
Jeremi'ah, 406, 410, 415 
Jerobo'am, 362 
Jerusalem, 285, 363, 406, 407, 

408; destruction of, 410 
Jewelry, 42-43, 51, 89, 166, 

206; earliest, 31 
Joppa, c, 238 
Jordan, 298, 363 
Joseph, 189, 197, 200, 316, 321 
Josiah, k, 405 
Judah, 362 f., 374, 375 ff , 404 f., 

406 
Judge, 79-80, 198 
Judgment, hereafter, 67, 149 f. 
Julius Africanus, 15 
Josephus, 15 

Ka, 65, 70 

Ka-by'-les, p, 30 

Ka-dash-man-Bel', k, 250 

Ka'-desh, 181 f., 210, 223, 224, 
226, 227, 228, 229 f., 231, 
239 f., 282, 299, 303, 304, 
337; battle of, 304 ff. 

Kadesh (in Galilee), c, 298 

Ka-ka'i, k, 112 

Kaldeans, 415 

Kar'-nak, 229, 257 f., 315, 319, 
339, 363 

Ka'-roy, 246 

Kassites, 212 

Keb, g, 57 

Ke'desh, g, 324 

Keft'-yew, p, 211, 254 

Ke-gem'-ne, n, 81, 100, 168 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



461 



Ke-mo'-se, k, 186 

Ke'-per, k, 336 

Ket'-ne, c, 212, 310 

Kez-we'-den, 304 

Kha-bi'-ri, 263, 284, 285 

Khartum', 4 

Khaf-re', k, 110-11 

Khamwe'-se, 325 

Kha-se'-khem, k, 43, 49 

Kha'-se-khem-u'-i, k, 45, 103 

Kha'-yu, k, 38 

Khen'-zer, k, 182, 183 

Khep'-ri, g, 59 

Khe'-ta, see Hittites 

Khe-ta'-sar, k, 311, 312 

Khi'-an, k, 178, 179, 183 

Khnum-ho'-tep, n, 138, 158 

Khon'-su, g, 312 

Khu'-fu, k. 107-110 

King, 115, 117-119, 355 f.; 
earliest, 38 f., 40-50; as 
priest, 63-64; as mortuary 
benefactor, 71; in O. K., 74- 
78; titles of, 112-13; in M. 
K, 139 ff.; in Emp., 195 f., 
266 f.; in Rest., 417 

Ko'-de, 303, 312 

Ko-ros'-ko, t, 153 

Koser', 127 

Ku-mi'-di, n, 283 

Kum'-meh, t, 156, 247 

Kush, 123, 126, 154, 156, 341, 
355 

Labyrinth, 162 f. 

La'-chish, c, 285 

Land, ownership of, 45-46, 141, 
188, 189, 196, 341, 395 

Law, 80, 143, 199 f., 414 

Lebanon, in O. K., 106, 114, 
127; in Emp., 209 f., 223, 
224, 227, 231, 233, 238, 239, 
245, 298, 338; in Decadence, 
352; in Rest., 409 

Leucos Limen', 127 



Libyans, 7, 29, 50; in Delta, 
34, 325, 327 ff., 333 ff., 336, 
360 ff., 389; Egyptian affin- 
ity, 30; in M. K., 153; in 
Emp., 207 f., 298, 318, 325, 
327 ff., 336 f., 343; in Egyp- 
tian army, 318, 360, 389, 
410 f.; in Decadence, 360- 
387; in Rest., 389, 410 f. 

Libyan period, 360-387; 
sketch of, 21-22, 24 

Lin'-dos, 414 

Lisht, t, 139 

Li-ta'-ny, r, 299 

Literature, in O. K., 100 f.; in 
M. K, 153, 159, 166-170; in 
Emp., 261, 320-322 

Lu'-li, k, 375 

Lux'-or, 257, 315, 320 

Lycia, 254, 304, 325, 329 

Lydia, 388, 416 

Ma-gha'-ra, Wady, d, 50, 120 

Magic, mortuary, 150, 203 f. 

Ma-ha-na'-im, c, 363 

Mai, n, 271 

Ma-ket-a'-ton, 287 

Manetho, 15, 26, 27, 321 

Mar'-duk-bal-id'-din, k, 375 

Mare'a, c, 389 

Mastaba, 69, 105, 107 

Mathematics, 93-94 

Maxyes = Meshwesh, q. v. 

Mazoi', p, 123, 153 

Mechanics, 94 

Medes and Media, 404, 406, 
416-18 

Medicine, 94-95 

Medi'net-Ha'-bu, 338, 339 

Mediterranean, 3, 10, 12, 253, 
317, 338; peoples of north- 
ern, 327 ff., 329, 333 ff. 

Me-gid'-do, c, 224, 225, 285; 
battle of, 225 ff. 

Me'khu, n, 126 



462 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Memphis, 39-40, 46, 61, 64, 
103, 119, 199, 203, 265 f., 
268, 300, 314 f., 317, 381, 
387, 391, 414; captured by 
Piankhi, 369; captured by- 
Assyrians, 379 

Menat-Khu'-fu, t, 108, 158 

Menes, 16; date of, 25; reign 
of, 39-40 

Men-ku-re', k, 111 

Ment-em-het', n, 389, 395 

Men'-tu-ho'-teps, k, 136 ff. 

Mentuho'tep, n, 154 

Me'-ra-sar, k, 299 

Me-rit-a'-ton, q, 287 

Mer-ne-ptah', k, 312, 316, 318, 
319, 327-332 

Mer-ne-re', k, 121-125; cam- 
paign in Nubia, 124 

Merodach-bal'adan, k, 375 

Me'-ro-e, c, 383, 390, 408 

Mer-yey', k, 329 f . 

Me-she'-sher, k, 336 

Mesh'-wesh, p, 329, 336, 360, 
361 

Me-tel'-la, k, 299, 303, 304, 305, 
306, 307-311 

Middle Class, 83, 146, 194, 201 f . 

Middle kingdom, 137 f., 139- 
170; sketch of, 17-18, 23, 27 

Miebis', k, 49, 50 

Mi-le'-tus, 413 

Min, 31, 48, 203 

Mis-phrag-mou'-tho-sis, k, 181 

Mi-tan'-ni, 212, 223, 230, 231, 
232, 233, 245, 247, 248, 249, 
250, 251, 262, 280 

Mi-ty-le'-ne, 413 

Moab, 374, 375, 408 

Moeris, lake, 162 

Money, 92, 161 

Monotheism, 147 

Monuments, 26-27 

Morality, 84 f. 

Muc-ri, 375 



Mummy (see Future Life and 
Tomb), discovery of royal, 
359 

Mur'sili, k, see Merasar 

Music and Song, 101, 321 f. 

Mut-em-u'-ya, q, 248 

Mut-nof'-ret, q, 214 

Muttallu, see Metella 

Mycenaeans, 159, 211 f., 253, 
254 

Mysians, 304 

Na-bu-na'-'id, k, 416 
Na-bu-pal-u'-cur, k, 406 
Na-ha-rin', 213, 230, 231, 232, 

233, 234, 239, 240, 245, 246, 

263, 264, 303, 310, 317 
Nahum, 381 f., 404 
Na'-pa-ta, c, 208, 246, 319, 

368, 370, 381 
Narmer, k, 49 
Nas'-te-sen, k, 383 
Nau'cratis, c, 412-413 
Navy (see Ships), 414, 415 
Ne'-bu-cha-drez'-zar, k, 406, 

407, 408-410, 415, 416 
Ne'-cho, k, 404-407 
Ne'-cho, n, 379, 380, 387 
Ne-fer-ho'-tep, k, 173, 182 
Ne'-fer-khe-re', k, 173 
Nef-ret-i'-ri, q, 316 
Ne-ga'-deh, c, 40 
Negroes, 7, 8, 157 
Ne'hi, n, 241 
Neit, 33, 34, 48, 60, 64 
Ne'kheb (see also El Kab), 36 
Nekh'-bet, g, 36, 41 
Ne'-khen, c, 36, 45, 46, 80, 207 
Ne-ku-re', n, 71 
Nemathap', 103 
Neph'-thys, g, 58 
Ne'-su-be-neb'-ded, k, 350, 354, 

358 
Neterimu', k, 49 
Nib-a'-mon, o, 230 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



463 



Nib'-hep-et-re', k, 136, 218 

Nile, 4-5, 8-10, 57; months of, 
5-6 

Nile Valley, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11-12 

Nineteenth dynasty, 293-333 

Nin'eveh (see also Assyria), c, 
263, 375 

Ninth dynasty, 134 

Ni-to'-cris, q, 128 

Ni-to'-cris, 388 

Niy, c, 233, 246, 282 

Nobles, 45-46, 83, 107, 117- 
118, 128, 135, 137 f., 139- 
142, 188 f., 196, 202 

Nof'-et-e'-te, q, 264 

Nomarch (see also Noble), 139- 
146 

Nome, earliest, 33; in O. K., 
79,81-82, 128; inM. K., 137 f.; 
in Emp., 188 f. 

Nubia and Nubians, in army, 
82, 120 f., 252, 304, 318; in 
earliest times, 40; in O. K., 
104, 106, 120 f., 121-127; in 
M. K, 142, 152, 154, 155- 
157; in Emp., 188, 207, 208 f., 
216, 232, 235 f.; 238, 241, 
246, 248, 249, 296, 301, 316, 
331; in Decadence, 351, 355, 
360, 363; independent, 367- 
383, 407 

Nub'-khep-ru-re'-In'-tef, k, 184 

Nu'-ges, c, 303 

Nut, g, 57, 60 

Oases, 6, 106, 234, 329, 410, 415 
Obelisk, 47, 220 f.> 234, 256, 
315; in New York, 234; in 
Constantinople, 234; in Lon- 
don, 234; of Thutmose III., 
234, 248; in Rome, 234, 248, 
315; in London, 234; in 
Paris, 315 
Official Class, 115, 119 f., 143, 
201 f. 



Okapi, 32 

Oke'anos, 57, 407 

Old Kingdom, 74-129; sketch 
of, 16-17, 23, 27; length and 
date of, 25; revived in Res- 
toration, 391 ff. 

On (see Heliopolis) 

Orcho'menos, c, 253 

Oron'tes, r, 209, 230, 231, 232, 
239, 240, 262 f., 282, 298, 
299, 303, 304, 310, 327 

Oryx-nome, 154 

Osir'is, g, 48, 49, 51, 57, 60, 61, 
67, 148-150, 286, 396 

O-sor'-kon L, 364 

Osorkon III., 365, 368, 370, 
371, 377 

O'-thu, c, 298 

Painting, 98, 165 f., 261 

Palace, earliest, 42; in O. K., 
78; in Emp., 259, 261 

Palermo Stone, 25, 27, 47, 100 

Palestine, 121, 351; in M. K., 
158 f., 176; under Hyksos, 
179 f., 181 f.; in Emp., 209- 
212, 223-227, 228, 235, 239, 
244, 245, 250, 263, 283, 284 f ., 
297 f., 299, 303-311, 316 ff., 
318 f., 328-331, 337; in De- 
cadence, 354, 360, 361, 362 ff., 
373 f., 375 ff., 378; in Rest., 
402 f., 406 f., 408-410, 415' 
Hebrews entering, 284 f . 

Papyrus, 34, 91, 338 

Papyrus Harris, 340, 347 f. 

Pay-no'-zem I., k, 358 

Pay-o'-nekh, 358 

Pe, c, 36, 45, 46 

Pe'-des, 304 

Pe-di-bast', k, 365 

Pentaur', 320 

Pen-te-we'-re, 320 

Pe'-pi I., k, 37, 119-121 

Pepi II., k, 125-128 



464 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Pe-pi-nakht', n, 126, 127 
Perian'der, k, 402 
Peri're, 330 
Per-Ramses, c, 314 
Pe-sib'-khen-no' I., k, 358 f. 
Pesibkhenno II., 359, 361 
Pe'-yes, 344 
Peles'et, p (see also Philistines), 

333, 351 
Persia, 416-418 
Pharaoh (see King) 
Pha-se'-lis, 413 
Philistines, 333, 351, 360, 374, 

375, 402, 404 f . 
Pho-cae'-a, 413 
Phoenicia and Phoenicians, in 

O. K., 106, 114, 121; in 

Emp, 210-212, 230, 233, 

235, 237, 253, 282, 297 f., 

299, 334 ff.; in Egypt, 317; 

in Decadence, 352, 375; in 

Rest., 398 f., 404 f., 408 f. 
Phrygians, enter Asia Minor, 

281, 334 
Pi-an'-khi, 368-371 
Pir'u, 374 

Pithom, c, 314, 316 
Poetry, oldest, 101; in M. K., 

168 f.; in Emp., 273-277, 

312, 320, 321 f. 
Polycra'tes, k, 413 
Population, 83 
Portraiture, see Sculpture 
Pottery, 42, 92, earliest, 31 
Prammares', g, 170 
Predynastic civilisation, 16, 

30-39 
Priest, 48, 63-65, 70-71, 72, 

148, 199, 202 f., 265 ff., 322 ff., 

340-343, 355 f., 357-361, 

367 ff., 395, 396 
Prophecy, 353 
Psam'-tik I., k., 387, 398, 401, 

402-404 
Psamtik II., 407 f. 



Psamtik III., 418 

Ptah, g, 48, 61, 265 f., 304, 325, 
338, 397 

Ptah-ho'-tep, n, 81, 100, 114; 
wisdom of, 116, 168 

Punt, 30; earliest voyage to, 
114; in O. K., 114, 115, 127; 
in M. K., 137, 142, 155; in 
Emp., 218 f., 234, 238, 296, 
338 

Pyramid, 72, 78, 106, 107, 391; 
the great, 108-110; of Kha- 
fre, 110; of Menkure, 111; of 
Gizeh, 108-111; of Shep- 
seskaf , 111; of Fifth Dynasty, 
115; of Eleventh Dynasty, 
137; of Twelfth Dynasty, 
164f.; of Thirteenth, 173; Sev- 
enteenth, 184; last, 205, 219 

Pyramid texts, 37, 68, 101, 
116, 391 

Qarqar, c, 365 
Queen, 75, 76 

Raamses, see Ramses, c 

Rain, 8, 10-11 

Ramesse'um, 319 

Ramessids, 324 

Ram'ses I., 297 

Ramses II., 164, 301 f., 304-310, 

340 
Ramses III., 333-344, 347 
Ramses IV., 347-348 
Ramses V., 348 
Ramses VI to VIII., 348 
Ramses IX, 348, 349 f., 351 
Ramses X and XL, 350 
Ramses XII., 350, 352, 355 f. 
Ramses, c, 314, 316 
Ramses-nakht, 349 
Raphia, battle of, 373 
Re, 58, 66, 110, 112. 147 f., 

203, 267 ff., 304, 338, 342; 

temples of, 113 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



465 



Rehobo'am, 362 

Red House, 35 

Red Sea, 3, 7, 90, 114, 115, 124, 
127, 137, 142, 218 f., 338; 
canal from Nile to, 159, 407 

Religion, 30, 47; earliest, 37; 
in O. K, 55-73, 111-113; in 
M. K., 147-151 ; in Emp., 265- 
288, 322-324, 340-343; in 
Rest., 391 f., 396 f.; in Eu- 
rope, 402 

Re'shep, g, 324 

Residence, royal, 77 f., 119, 
139, 394 

Restoration, 387-418; sketch 
of, 22-23, 24; sources, 27-28 

Ret'-e-nu, 158, 310 

Rhodes, 211, 253, 413 

Rib-ad'-di, n, 263, 283 f., 288 

Ribleh, c, 405, 409, 410 

Rome, 418 

Rosetta, c, 6 

Sahara, 4, 5, 6 

Sa-hu-re', k, 112, 114-115 

Sais, c, 33, 34, 46, 60, 368, 379, 
380, 387, 394, 396, 413 f. 

Sa-ke-re', k, 287, 288 

Sak-ka'-ra, t, 115 

Sa'latis, k, 177 

Samal', 379 

Sa'-mos, 413 

Sandstone, 4, 5 

Sarbut el-Kha'dem, d, 160 

Sardinians, 252, 304, 325 

Sargon, k, 373 f., 375 

Saul, 360 

Scarabae'us, 204, 248 

Scorpion, k, 38 

Sculpture (see also art), earli- 
est, 30, 31, 32; protodynas- 
tic, 43; in O. K, 96-99; in 
M. K, 165; in Emp., 259 ff., 
278 f., 300, 309, 320, 339; in 
Rest., 393 f. 



Scythians, p, 403, 404 
Sebek-em-saf , k, 173 
Sebek-ho'-tep, k, 173, 182 
Se-bek-khu', n, 158 
Se'bek-nefru-Re', q, 163, 170 
Seben'nytos, 15 
Seb'-ni, n, 126 
Second Dynasty, 40-51, 103, 

300; length and date of, 25 
Sed, feast of, 42 
Seir, 338 
Seka, k, 38 

Se-ken-en-re', k, 176, 185, 186 
Se-khem-re' Khu-to'-we, k, 173 
Sek'-mem, d, 158 
Semerkhet', k, 49 
Semites, 210-212, 263; earliest, 

7, 29, 114; invading Egypt, 

29-30, 180; in Egypt, 158, 

236, 254, 317 f., 398 
Semitic language, in Egypt, 29- 

30, 253 
Sem'-neh, t, 156, 157, 161 
Se'-nekh-ke-re', k, 134 
Sen-jir-li', c, 379 
Sennacherib, k, 375 
Sen'-zar, c, 232 
Sep'-lel, k, 281, 299 
Se'-ra-pe'-um, 397 
Sesostris, legendary, 159 f. 
Se-sos'-tris I., 152, 154 f., 349 
Sesostris II., 155, 163 
Sesostris III., 155-160 
Set, 32, 41, 48, 58, 113 
Sethroite nome, 177 
Se'-thut, 123 
Se'-ti I, 297-301, 302, 303, 

317 
Seti II., k, 332 
Set-nakht', k, 333 
Seventh dynasty, 133, 186 
Samaria, 373 
Se'-we, k, 373 
Sha'baka, k, 374-377, 381 
Sha-ba-ta'-ka, k, 377-378 



466 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Shab-tu'-na, t, 306 
Shalmane'ser II., 365 
Shalmaneser IV., 373 
Sha'-ru-hen', c, 187, 188 
Sheke'lesh, p, 329, 334 
She'mesh-E'dom, 245 
Shep-nu'-pet (daughter of Osor- 

kon III.), 371 
Shepnupet (sister of Taharka), 

381, 388 
Shep-ses-kaf, k, 111 
Sher'den, 252, 283, 304, 318, 

329 f., 334, 335, 338 
She r shonk I., 360-364 
Sheshonk IV., 365 
Sheshonk, n, 360 
Ships (including boats), 90, 106, 

122, 137, 200, 218, 230, 240, 

253 f., 317, 334 f., 338, 339, 

341, 354, 398, 404, 414, 415; 

earliest, 31, 32, 33; earliest 

sea-going, 106, 114 
Shmun, c, 60 
Shu, g, 57 

Shubbiluliu'ma, see Seplel 
Shut-tar'-na, k, 251 
Sib'i, 373 
Sicily, 329, 334 
Sidon, 211, 252, 263, 408, 409 
Si-ha'-thor, k, 173 
Si'keli, p, 329, 334 
Sil'sileh, d, 88 
Silver, 89, 92, 197, 235, 254, 

340, 405 
Si'-my-ra, c, 211, 231, 282, 283, 

298 
Sinai, 7, 50, 91, 104, 106, 110, 

115, 120, 121, 142, 155, 160 f., 

221, 338, 348 
Sind'bad, 167 
Si-nou'-he, n, 158, 166 f. 
Sirius, 24-25, 35-36 
Siut', c, 5, 196, 197; nomarchs, 

134-136 
Sixth dynasty, 117-129 



Ske-mi-o'-phris, q, 170 

Slaves and serfs, 46, 82-83, 85, 
196, 202, 236, 254, 317, 341, 
343, 395 

Smen'-des, 350 

Snef'-ru, k, 106-107 

So, k, 373 

Sobk, g, 162 f. 

Society, 82-86, 145-147, 201 f., 
395 

Soil of Egypt, 5-6, 8-9 

So'-kar, g, 48 

Solomon, 362, 363 

Solon, 414 

Soma'li, p, 29, 30 

Soul, 65 

Sources, character of, 26-28 

Spartans, 413, 416 

Sphinx, Great, 110-111, 247 

State, earliest, 45; in O. K., 
74-83, 113-114; in M. K., 
139-147; in Emp., 193-202, 
322; in Rest., 394 f. 

Stone, 42, 88-89, 92; earliest 
work in, 31 f., 44 f., 105 

Suan', c, 7 

Sudan, 7, 156 

Suez, 29, 106, 253, 316, 317; 
canal, 159, 218, 407 

Su'-tekh, g, 176, 179, 183, 304, 
324, 339 

Syria and Syrians, in O. K., 90, 
106, 114; in M. K., 158 f.; 
under Hyksos, 180, 181: in 
Emp., 208, 209-212, 223- 
227, 228, 235, 237, 239, 240, 
244, 247, 250, 251 f., 263 f., 
282-284, 285, 297 f., 299, 
303-311, 316 ff., 319, 327, 
333-336, 337, 341, 343: in 
Decadence, 351 f., 375 ff., 
379 f.; in Rest., 389, 398, 
402 f., 405 f., 406 f., 40S-410, 
415; in Egypt, L58, 236, 
251, 317 f., 398, 410 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



467 



Ta-du-khi'-pa, q, 251 

Ta-har'-ka, k, 376, 378-381 

Takelot' II., 365 

Tale, 112,' 166 f., 176, 185, 237 f., 
247, 312, 320 ff., 365 

Ta'-nis, c, 165, 314, 315, 350; 
kings at, 350-361 

Tanite-Amonite period, 350- 
361; sketch of, 21-22, 24 

Ta-nut-a'-mon, k, 381-382, 387, 
388 

Tapestry, 259 

Taxation, 79, 141-143, 197, 
295 f 395 

Tef-nakh'-te, k, 368-371, 379 

Tef'-nut, g, 57 

Telienu, p, 328 ff. 

Tell el-Amarna, see Amarna, 
and Akhetaton 

Tell el-Yehudi'yeh, 314 

Temple, 147 f., 203, 229, 236, 
255-259, 299 f., 314 f., 316, 
338 f.; earliest, 33j 37, 45, 
47 f., 62-63; of sun, 113; 
terraced, 217-219; endow- 
ments, 300, 341 ff. 

Tenth dynasty, 134-6 

Te'-os, 413 

Te'resh, p, 329 

Te'-ti II., k, 119 

Tha'-ru, c, 224, 295, 297, 304, 
316, 317 

Thebes, rise of, 135, 174, 182, 
196, 199, 204 f.; in Emp., 
257 ff., 314, 315; in Deca- 
dence, 350, 355 f., 357 ff., 
362, 364, 371, 380; captured 
by Assyrians, 380, 381 f.; in 
Rest., 394 

The'-kel, 333, 351, 352, 354 

The'-mer, k, 334 

Thesh, k, 38 

Thi'-nis, c, 16, 39, 40, 46, 120, 
125, 396 

Third dynasty, 48, 103-7 



Thirteenth dynasty, 173-5, 182 

Thoth, g, 48, 59, 60, 113 

Thu'-re, n, 209 

Thu'-tiy, n, 238 

Thut-mo'-se I., k, 208 f., 213- 
216, 217 

Thutmose II., 214, 215, 216 

Thutmose III., 214 f., 216-243, 
282; 1st campaign, 223-228; 
2nd campaign, 228 f.; 3rd 
campaign, 229; 4th cam- 
paign, 229; 5th campaign, 
230; 6th campaign, 231; 7th 
campaign, 231; 8th cam- 
paign, 232-234; 9th cam- 
paign, 238 f.; 11th and 12th 
campaigns, 239; 13th cam- 
paign, 239; 14th campaign, 
239; 15th and 16th cam- 
paigns, 239; 17th campaign, 
239 f.; 295 

Thutmose IV., 247 f., 251, 261, 
289 

Tig-lath-pi-le'-ser I., k, 354 

Tiglath-pileser III., 366 

Tigro-Euphrates Valley, 3, 212 

Tikh'-si, c, 246 

Timai'os, k, 177 

Timsah', lake, 317 

Tiy, q, 248, 253, 264, 270 

Tiy, q (wife of Tutenkhaton), 
289 

Tomb, 36-37, 43-44, 51, 68- 
73, 105, 106-107, 149, 150 f., 
164, 202, 204 f ., 219 f., 272 f ., 
301, 349 f.; endowment of, 
44, 45, 70-72 

Tom'-bos, 208 

Tosor'thros, k, 105 

Trade, see Commerce 

Treasury and Treasurer, 45, 46, 
79, 118, 141-143, 195, 197 f., 
200 

Treaty, 299, 303, 311, 377 

Troglodytes, 50, 207 



468 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Troia, d, 88 

Tu'-nip, c, 230, 240, 282, 305, 

310 
Tut-enkh-a'-ton, k, 288, 289 
Tut-enkh-a'-mon, k, 288 
Tu'-ya, q, 301 
Twelfth dynasty, 152-170; date 

of. 27 
Twentieth dynasty, 333-356 
Twentv-nrst 'dynasty, 357-361, 

362 
Twenty-second dynasty, 360- 

366 
Twenty-third dynasty, 365 f., 

368 
Twenty-fourth dynasty, 371 
Twenty-fifth dynasty,*374- 383 
Twenty-sixth dynasty, 387-418 
Two Lands, 15 
Tyre, 211, 235, 298, 299, 316, 

375, 379, 408, 409, 410 

U'-bi, d, 263 

Uga'rit, 304 

Ul'-la-za, c, 298 

Une'shek, 249 

U'-ni, n. 120, 121, 122, 124, 125 

U'-nis, k, 115 

Usephais', k, 45, 49, 50 

U-ser-kaf, k, 112, 114 

U'-ser-ke-re", k, 119 

Valley of the Kings' Tombs, 
219 f., 241, 247, 263, 301, 
348, 350 



Vizier, 80-81, 113-114, 119, 
144, 182, 195, 196, 197, 198, 
199, 200 f. 

Wady A-la'-ki, 301, 302 

Wady-Halfa. 154 

Wadv Tu-mi-lat', 153, 314, 316, 

317 
Wa-wat', p, 123, 126, 153, 155. 

241 
Wen-a'-mon, 352-4 
We'shesh, p, 334 
White House, 36, 197 
White Nile. 4 

1 White Wall, c, 46, 103, 119 
; World, 57 
Worshippers of Horus, 38-39, 

48 
Writing. 91, 92-93. 281, 337 f., 

395; earliest, 37 f., 46 f. 

Xois, c, 175 

Yam, d. 123. 126 
Ya'-ru, 66. 203 
Year. 35, 46 
Ye-no'-am, c. 331 

Za'-hi, 223, 238 
Zakar-Ba'-al, 352-4 
Zau, n, 125 

Zed-e-ki'-ah, k, 40S, 410 
Zer, k, 51, 148 
Zo'-ser, k, 103-106 



INDEX TO OLD TESTAMENT REFERENCES 



Genesis, xlvii. 19-20, 189 
" xlvii. 21, 202 
" xlvii. 23-27, 197 

Exodus i. 11, 314 

Joshua xix. 6, 187 

II Samuel x. 10, 159 

I Kings ix. 15-17, 362 f. 

xiv. 25, 362 f. 
" xvii. 4, 373 

II Kings xviii, 21, 376 

xix. 9, 376 
" xxiv. 7, 407 

xxiv. 15, 408 f. 



Psalm civ. 273 ff. 
Isaiah xix. 376 f. * 

" xx. 374 
Jeremiah xliii, 8-13, 415 
xlvi. 1-12, 406 
xlvii. 4, 351 
" xlvii. 1-5, 405 
Ezekiel xxx. 13, 418 

" xl. 10-18, 415 f. 
Amos ix. 7, 351 
Nahum ii.-iii. 404 

iii. 8-10, 381 



C&e historical Series for iBMt StuUems 



Edited by Professor CHARLES F. KENT, Ph.D., 0} Yale University, and 
Professor FRANK K. SANDERS, Ph.D., formerly of Yale University 



IN response to a widespread demand for non-technical yet scholarly and reliable guides 
to the study of the history, literature, and teaching of the Old and New Testaments, 
and of the contemporary history and literature, this series aims to present in concise and 
attractive form the results of investigation and exploration in these broad fields. Based 
upon thoroughly critical scholarship, it will emphasize assured and positive rather than 
transitional positions. The series as a whole is intended to present a complete and con- 
nected picture of the social, political, and religious life of the men and peoples who figure 
most prominently in the biblical records. 

Each volume is complete in itself, treating comprehensively a given subject or period. 
It also refers freely to the biblical and monumental sources, and to the standard authori- 
ties. Convenience of size, clearness of presentation, and helpfulness to the student make 
the series particularly well adapted for (1) practical text-books for college, seminary, and 
university classes; (2) handbooks for the use of Bible classes, clubs, and guilds; (3) guides 
for individual study; and (4) books for general reference. 



Vols. I. HISTORY OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE. 

1. The United Kingdom. Sixth edi- Charles F. Kent, Ph.D., Professor of 

tion. Biblical Literature, Yale University. 

2. The Divided Kingdom. Sixth edi- 

tion. 

II. HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 

. The Babylonian, Persian, and Greek Charles F. Kent, Ph.D., Professor of 

Periods. Biblical Literature, Yale University. 

r . The Maccabean and Roman Period James S. Riggs, D.D., Professor of Bib- 
(including New Testament Times). lical t Criticism, Auburn Theological 

Seminary. 

III. CONTEMPORARY OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 

5. History of the Ancient Egyptians. James H. Breasted, Ph.D., Professor of 

Egyptology and Oriental History, The 
University of Chicago. 

6. History of the Babylonians and George S. Goodspeed, Ph.D., Professor 

Assyrians. of Ancient History, The University of 

Chicago. 

IV. NEW TESTAMENT HISTORIES. 

7. The Life of Jesus. Rush Rhees, President of the University 

of Rochester. 

8. The Apostolic Age. George T. Purves, Ph.D., D.D., late 

Professor of New Testament Literature 
and Exegesis, Princeton Theological 
Seminary. 

V. OUTLINES FOR THE STUDY OF BIBLICAL 
HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 

9. From Earliest Times to 200 A. D. Frank K. Sanders, Ph.D., Professor of 

Biblical Literature, Yale University, 
and Henry T. Fowler, Ph.D.. Pro- 
fessor of Biblical Literature and His- 
tory, Brown University. 



6 s 






Cfte historical Series for IBiblt Students 



EDITED BY 

Professor CHARLES F. KENT, Ph.D., of Yale University, 

AND 

Professor FRANK K. SANDERS, Ph.D., formerly of 
Yale University 



Volume v 



A HISTORY 

OF THE 

ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 






\ 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper p 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2003 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drrve 
Cranberry Townshp. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



